Relationship between psychiatric status and frontal-subcortical systems in HIV-infected individuals.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected adults frequently evidence both neurocognitive and psychiatric dysfunction. It was hypothesized that apathy and irritability, but not anxiety and depression, are related to HIV effects on frontal-subcortical systems. This hypothesis was evaluated by determining the degree to which these psychiatric features are associated with neurocognitive functioning that is dependent upon frontal-subcortical circuitry and, therefore, thought to be sensitive to the central nervous system effects of HIV.