Effect of Electrical Stimulation on Healthy Skeletal Muscles

This study was made to obtain a more definite information of adaptive effects of electrical stimulation on healthy skeletal muscle, because the effect of electrical stimulation on the healthy muscle has been still controversial. Right sciatic nerve of Wistar albino rats was electrically stimulated daily 30 minutes at the frequency of 5 Hz for two weeks and they were allowed to survive until the second week, when appropriate leg muscles of both sides were removed for wet muscle weight measurement, succinic dehydrogenase (SDH) stain and microangiogram.

Electrically stimulated muscles gained weight and the diameters of each type of muscle fiber of stimulated muscles became larger comparing with those of nonstimulated muscles. Also each type of stimulated muscle fiber gained SDH activity, that made the difference of individual muscle fiber type indistinct from histochemical point of view.

Microangiography done with India black ink showed the dilatation of vessels as well as the increase of number of capillaries in electrically stimulated muscles.

In view of these results, electrical stimulation can be utilized as a therapeutic procedure to encourage muscle strengthening exercise and also to prevent the muscle wasting in atrophic conditions of the muscles, such as in a cast immobilization.