The effect of depletion of reduced glutathione (GSH) on brain mitochondrial function and N-acetyl aspartate concentration has been investigated. Using pre-weanling rats, GSH was depleted by L-buthionine sulfoximine administration for up to 10 days. In both whole brain homogenates and purified mitochondrial preparations complex IV (cytochrome c oxidase) activity was decreased, by up to 27%, as a result of this treatment. In addition, after 10 days of GSH depletion, citrate synthase activity was significantly reduced, by 18%, in the purified mitochondrial preparations, but not in whole brain homogenates, suggesting increased leakiness of the mitochondrial membrane. The whole brain N-acetyl aspartate concentration was also significantly depleted at this time point, by 11%. It is concluded that brain GSH is important for the maintenance of optimum mitochondrial function and that prolonged depletion leads also to loss of neuronal integrity. The relevance of these findings to Parkinson's disease and the inborn errors of glutathione metabolism are also discussed.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) causes several neurological diseases in the late stages of AIDS, but their ante-mortem diagnosis is problematic.Clinical criteria (defining a presumptive diagnosis) and polymerase chain reaction $4 (PCR) assay from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were blindly used to predict the involvement of CMV in neurological disorders of 164 consecutive AIDS patients undergoing a lumbar puncture.During the follow-up, a definite diagnosis based on viral culture of CSF, clinical outcome and/or CNS histology was allowed in 88 patients, 27 (16 %) of whom had a proven CMV related neurological disease.The concordance between the presumptive and definite diagnosis was of 60 %, inducing a moderate agreement kappa index of 0.40.In contrast, the sensitivity and specificity of PCR were respectively of 89 and 94 %, with a positive and negative predictive values of 86 and 95 %.Cytomegalovirus related neurological diseases appeared thus as a frequent complication of AIDS, and detection of viral DNA in CSF by means of PCR seems a reliable tool for their diagnosis, allowing its use for therapeutic decisions 20 99mTC-HMPAO LEUCOCYTE SCINTIGRAPHY IN DIAGNOSIS