Research stimulates wound healing with electricity

This the claim of a team at Ohio State University whose study - published in Lab on a Chip - found that steady electrical stimulation generates increased permeability across blood vessels, providing new insight into the ways new blood vessels might grow.

The electrical stimulation provided a constant voltage with an accompanying electric current in the presence of fluid flow. The findings indicate that stimulation increases permeability of the blood vessel, which is an important characteristic that can help wound-healing substances in the blood reach injuries more efficiently.

Electroceutical insights could lead to better bandages for chronic wounds

"There was this speculation that blood vessels could grow better if you stimulated them electrically," said Shaurya Prakash, senior author of the study and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State University. "And we found that the response of the cells in our blood vessel models shows significant promise towards changing the permeability of the vessels that can have positive outcomes for our ongoing work in wound healing."