Little vessels react to magnetic switch
By Janet Raloff
From San Diego, at the Experimental Biology 2003 meeting
In laboratory animals, a magnet can act like a switch to either open or constrict tiny blood vessels, researchers report. Although preliminary, their study suggests the prospect of using magnets to alter blood flow in damaged tissue.
To look for vascular responses to magnets, biomedical engineer Thomas Skalak of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville obtained a grant from the National Institutes of Health and recruited electrical engineer Cassandra E. Morris, also at U. Va. “I was initially quite skeptical” of finding an effect, says Morris.