This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.

This music score was submitted for the Kaleidoscope 2020 Call for Scores, an open access collaboration with the UCLA Music Library.

HIV infection results in a decrease in circulating CD4(+) T-cell and naive T-cell numbers. If such losses were associated with an erosion of T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire diversity in the peripheral T-cell pool, this might exacerbate the state of persistent immunodeficiency. Existing methods for the analysis of the TCR repertoire have demonstrated skewed distributions of TCR genes in HIV-infected subjects but cannot directly measure TCR diversity. Here we used AmpliCot, a quantitative assay based on DNA hybridization kinetics, to measure TCR diversity in a cross-sectional comparison of 19 HIV-infected persons to 18 HIV-uninfected controls. HIV-infected persons had a 10-fold decrease in total TCR repertoire diversity in 1.5 mL of blood compared with uninfected controls, with decreased diversity correlating most closely with a lower CD4(+) T-cell percentage. Nonetheless, the TCR repertoire diversity of sort-purified T-cell subpopulations in HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected subjects was comparable. These observations suggest that the TCR repertoire diversity changes in whole blood during HIV disease progression are primarily the result of changes in the number and proportion of T-cell subpopulations and that most HIV-infected persons may retain a sufficiently diverse TCR repertoire to permit immune reconstitution with antiretroviral therapy alone, without thymopoiesis.

This article explores a debate that emerged within the Chinese medical community in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The debate, which centered on the respective roles played by the heart and brain in functions related to thinking, movement, and the onset of psychiatric disorders, concluded that neuropsychiatry's overriding emphasis on the brain was shortsighted. Instead, participants resolved that the brain and heart, alongside other organs and systems, were inextricably entwined, with many thought processes being governed by the heart. Although the discussion only lasted a few years, the insights it generated offer valuable theoretical contributions to contemporary conceptualizations of the mind/body duality. By highlighting alternative ways of understanding "mental" malfunction - theories that go beyond a narrow focus on the brain itself - Chinese medicine might provide a model for rethinking the relationships among the brain, the body, and different organs, systems, and physiological processes. The article ends by drawing a parallel between the heart vs. brain debate and recent research that seeks to show how gut health and heart health affect psychological and emotional wellbeing.