Abbruscato Lab Investigates E-Cigarette Impact on Brain Health

A TTUHSC research group led by Thomas Abbruscato, PhD, has asked the question of e-cigarette safety since the first e-cigarette products were introduced in the U.S. Their efforts have primarily focused on use and impact on brain health and the risk of neurovascular diseases such as stroke.

E-cigarettes have been the most commonly used tobacco products among U.S. youth since 2014. In the decade since, focused engineering of e-cigarettes have created more efficient nicotine delivery systems that are tolerated better by users than conventional cigarettes, resulting in e-cigarette users exposing the brain to much higher levels of nicotine.

Abbruscato, chair of the Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said years of grant support from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has allowed his team to study the effects of tobacco smoke and e-cigarette vapor exposure on neuroinflammation, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and oxidative injury, which increases the risk and worsens the outcome for stroke.

His most recent NIH grant, in collaboration with the Luca Cucullo Lab at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, supports investigation of the growing population of mixed users (vape and tobacco smokers), including BBB damage and the risk and severity of stroke after mixed use or single product exposure.

Recent clinical studies have shown that mixed use of e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes tripled the odds of stroke in young adults when compared to nonsmokers and doubled their odds of stroke over traditional cigarette users.

“This strongly suggests that switching from (conventional cigarettes) to (e-cigarettes) does not confer stroke risk benefits,” Abbruscato said. “Gender and menopause also can significantly affect the overall impact of electronic nicotine delivery system exposure, with and without tobacco smoke. These research areas have not been explored, and we hope to create new, critical knowledge that will help us understand the effect of dual-use versus switching combinations on the risk and severity of stroke.”

Abbruscato’s team collaborates with the TTUHSC laboratory teams of Sharilyn Almodovar, PhD, Department of Immunology and Molecular Microbiology; Igor Ponomarev, PhD, Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience; and Jenny Wilkerson, PhD, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences; to investigate how the BBB is altered by the presence of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Abbruscato said people living with HIV are three to four times more likely to smoke and may use other drugs — including opioids — more often. The team recently applied for a five-year NIH grant.

“We know that cigarette smoking, vaping and the use of opioids can negatively affect the brain and neurovasculature,” Abbruscato said. “We are proposing experiments to learn how HIV interacts with nicotine and opioids (e.g., oxycodone) and the BBB so that we can better help prevent further damage to the brain and allow for more efficient antiretroviral therapy in people with HIV.”

—By Mark Hendricks