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1 Depatment of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
2 Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tskalak{at}virginia.edu.
Magnetic field therapy has recently become a widely used complementary/alternative medicine for the treatment of vascular as well as other musculoskeletal pathologies including soft tissue injuries. Recent studies in our laboratory and others have suggested that acute static magnetic field (SMF) exposure can have a modulatory influence on the microvasculature, acting to normalize vascular function; however, the effect of chronic SMF exposure has not been investigated. This study aimed to measure, for the first time, the adaptive microvascular response to a chronic, 7-day continuous magnetic field exposure. Murine dorsal skinfold chambers were applied on day 0 and neodymium static magnets (or size and weight matched shams) were affixed to the chambers at day 0, where they remained until day 7. Separate analysis of arteriolar and venular diameters revealed that chronic SMF application significantly abrogated the luminal diameter expansion observed in sham treated networks. Magnet treated venular diameters were significantly reduced at day 4 and day 7 (34.3% and 54.4%, respectively) as compared to sham treated vessels. Arteriolar diameters were also significantly reduced by magnet treatment at day 7 (50%) but not significantly at day 4 (31.6%), although the same trend was evident. Venular functional length density was also significantly reduced by chronic field application (60%). These results suggest that chronic SMF exposure can alter the adaptive microvascular remodeling response to mechanical injury, thus supporting the further study of chronic application of static magnetic fields for the therapeutic treatment of vascular pathologies involving the dysregulation of microvascular structure.
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