Arteriolar endothelial dysfunction is restored in ischaemic muscles by chronic electrical stimulation.

Chronic intermittent electrical stimulation (15 min on, 85 min off, seven times per day) eliminated endothelial dysfunction of pre-capillary arterioles in ischaemic rat ankle flexor muscles. Responses to acetylcholine were restored from constriction to dilation, and the reduced dilation to bradykinin was corrected by 1 week of stimulation. Administration of the NOS inhibitor N(omega)-nitro-L-arginine for 1 week impaired arteriolar reactivity in a similar way to ischaemia, and dilator function was likewise restored by chronic stimulation.

Development of an implantable muscle stimulator: measurement of stimulated angiogenesis and poststimulus vessel regression.

Objective: We developed a lightweight, totally implantable electrical stimulator designed to elicit contraction of skeletal muscle. The stimulator can be programmed to run for different on-off intervals in a given time period in a fully automatic mode. Using the stimulator, angiogenesis was promoted in order to study the rate at which vessel growth and subsequent regression occurs after stimulus removal.