HIV infection often causes neurological symptoms including cognitive and motor dysfunction, which have been collectively termed HIV/neuroAIDS. Neuropsychological assessment and clinical symptoms have been the primary diagnostic criteria for HIV/neuroAIDS, even for the mild cognitive and motor disorder, the most prevalent form of HIV/neuroAIDS in the era of combination antiretroviral therapy. Those performance-based assessments and symptoms are generally descriptive and do not have the sensitivity and specificity to monitor the diagnosis, progression, and treatment response of the disease when compared to objective and quantitative laboratory-based biological markers, or biomarkers. In addition, effects of demographics and comorbidities such as substance abuse, psychiatric disease, nutritional deficiencies, and co-infection on HIV/neuroAIDS could be more readily determined using biomarkers than using neuropsychological assessment and clinical symptoms. Thus, there have been great efforts in identification of HIV/neuroAIDS biomarkers over the past two decades. The need for reliable biomarkers of HIV/neuroAIDS is expected to increase as the HIV-infected population ages and their vulnerability to neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease increases. Currently, three classes of HIV/neuroAIDS biomarkers are being pursued to establish objective laboratory-based definitions of HIV-associated neurologic injury: cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, blood biomarkers, and neuroimaging biomarkers. In this review, we will focus on the current knowledge in the field of HIV/neuroAIDS biomarker discovery.

HIV感染通常会引起包括认知和运动功能障碍在内的神经系统症状，这些症状统称为HIV /神经艾滋病。神经心理学评估和临床症状一直是HIV /神经AIDS的主要诊断标准，甚至对于轻度认知和运动障碍（在抗逆转录病毒疗法联合使用的时代，HIV /神经AIDS的最普遍形式）也是主要的诊断标准。与基于客观和定量实验室的生物标记物或生物标记物相比，那些基于性能的评估和症状通常具有描述性，并且不具有监测疾病的诊断，进展和治疗反应的敏感性和特异性。此外，人口统计学和合并症的影响，例如药物滥用，精神病，营养缺乏，与使用神经心理学评估和临床症状相比，使用生物标志物可以更容易地确定艾滋病毒/神经艾滋病的共同感染情况。因此，在过去的二十年中，在鉴定HIV /神经AIDS生物标志物方面已经付出了巨大的努力。随着HIV感染人群的年龄增长及其对神经退行性疾病，特别是阿尔茨海默氏病的脆弱性的增加，对HIV /神经AIDS可靠的生物标志物的需求预计会增加。当前，正在寻求三类HIV /神经AIDS生物标记物，以建立与HIV相关的神经损伤的基于实验室的客观定义：脑脊液生物标记物，血液生物标记物和神经影像生物标记物。在这篇综述中，我们将重点关注HIV /神经AIDS生物标志物发现领域的最新知识。