# The Progressive Elevation of Spontaneous Cortical Activity in HAND (PESCAH) Project

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $528,024

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Although HIV-infected patients in the western world have a life expectancy near that of the general population,
they are at a significantly elevated risk of developing HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). Such
disorders are the most common neurological complication of HIV disease, with prevalence estimates ranging
from 35-70% of all HIV-infected patients, and research targeting such comorbidities has been identified as a
top priority by the Office of AIDS Research (NOT-OD-15-137). While the mechanisms that underlie HAND are
not well understood, numerous human neuroimaging studies have examined the brain regions that may be
involved, and overall these studies have been largely successful in identifying the critical hubs and large-scale
networks. However, many questions remain regarding basic circuit dysfunction within these brain regions, and
consequently there is a clear and common need to further investigate the key physiological parameters that
may underlie the development and progression of HAND, especially in the context of aging.
It is well known that human cortical neurons exhibit spontaneous firing in the absence of incoming exogenous
and endogenous input. Across a neuronal population, these discharges summate with local dendritic currents
and synaptic potentials to produce cortical rhythmic activity, which is often referred to as “spontaneous activity.”
Such spontaneous rhythms are ubiquitous throughout the human brain, but their role in modulating cognition is
only beginning to be understood. Recently, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to show that the strength
of spontaneous activity directly affects neural oscillatory activity in the same cortical area, and in-turn modulates
real time task performance in controls and HIV-infected adults. Additionally, we have shown that spontaneous
activity in multiple brain regions increases with advancing age, that this increase is deleterious to performance,
and that these effects are accentuated in patients with HAND. In fact, our preliminary data suggests that the
level of spontaneous activity in specific brain regions may distinguish age-matched HIV-infected patients with
and without HAND. In this project, we will quantify the trajectory of age-related elevations in spontaneous
cortical activity in a large group of HIV-infected adults and demographically-matched controls. We will then
evaluate how the strength of such spontaneous activity affects local neural oscillations and real time cognitive
performance. Based on extensive preliminary data, we hypothesize that spontaneous activity will increase with
age in both groups, and that the slope of this increase will be steeper in HIV-infected adults relative to controls,
and further accentuated in those with HAND. Importantly, we also hypothesize that these increases will be
associated with proportional changes in the strength of the neural oscillations underlying cognition, and
behavioral performance indices s...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9852468
- **Project number:** 5R01MH116782-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Tony W. Wilson
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $528,024
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-04-01 → 2021-01-14

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9852468

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9852468, The Progressive Elevation of Spontaneous Cortical Activity in HAND (PESCAH) Project (5R01MH116782-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9852468. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*