Assessment of the corpus callosum function in children with HIV infection

The purpose of this study was to assess interhemispheric transfer in three brain's sensory modalities--visual, dihaptic (touching), and kinesthetic (hand position)--in children with HIV infection. The objective of this research was to ascertain whether differential interhemispheric transfer compared to intrahemispheric transfer accuracy can be found between HIV and NHIV groups. The results indicated that, in both the kinesthetic and tachistoscopic tasks the disparity in performance between intra and interhemispheric condition was greater for the HIV group. In the dihaptic task performance was equivalent. The HIV group, particularly the younger children, responded correctly more in the interhemispheric condition than the non-HIV group. These results suggest that there is a difference in processing information inter-versus intrahemispherically that varies according to the task in question. In addition, the discrepancies between the HIV and non-HIV group may indicate that the HIV does influence the function of the corpus callosum.