A new study is revealing that electricity may help in wound healing by increasing the permeability of blood vessels, which in turn, increases their capacity to carry white blood cells and oxygen. The remarkable work is taking place at Ohio State University.

“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 The 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.”