Research overview: FIV-associated neurologic disease

FIV, like HIV, can invade the central nervous system, and infected cats sometimes develop behavioral changes, altered sleep, cognitive and motor deficits, and electrophysiologic abnormalities. The virus reaches the brain early via infected immune cells, and neuropathology studies in experimentally infected cats have documented inflammatory and degenerative changes. This made FIV a useful model for lentiviral neuro-invasion and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders. This overview summarizes the neurology literature rather than a single study, describing how the virus crosses into the nervous system, what clinical and pathologic signs have been characterized, and why neuro-FIV research bridges veterinary neurology and human neuro-AIDS investigation, informing both feline care and broader understanding of lentiviral effects on the brain.