Background: Cigarettes contained addictive substances that may have adverse effects on health, such as memory impairment. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that plays a role in regulating memory. This study aimed to compare the effects of conventional cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor on hippocampal pyramidal cells in animal models.
Method: Experimental study used 30 male Sprague Dawley white rats aged 10-12 weeks. Rats were divided into 5 groups consisting of 1 control group and 4 treatment groups and exposed to conventional cigarette smoke and electronic cigarette vapor for 2 weeks and 4 weeks. The amount of exposure given was 12 times each day. After two weeks and four weeks of exposure, rats were necropsied, the Hippocampus was processed and stained using Hematoxylin and eosin. Pyramidal cell nuclei were viewed with a biological microscope CX-33 microcamera DP2 with 400x magnification in 3 fields of view. The average number of pyknotic nucleus pyramidal cells collected was statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test.
Result: The hippocampal pyknotic pyramidal cells number in each treatment group was higher compared to the control group. A correlation was found between 2 weeks groups and 4 weeks groups of treatment. Conventional cigarette smoke groups showed higher means of pyknotic pyramidal cells than electronic cigarette vapor and were statistically significant in both 2 weeks groups and 4 weeks groups of treatment (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The type of cigarette and the duration of cigarettes exposure affects the number of pyknotic pyramidal cells. Conventional cigarette causes more significant changes than electronic cigarettes, and the exposure duration of conventional cigarettes affects pyramidal cells in the hippocampus.
