In research on mice, a team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found that the injection of a type of cells known to promote blood vessel growth helps accelerate to restoration of muscle mass lost due to inactivity.

The cells in question are called pericytes and, in addition to promoting blood vessel growth, also play a role in dilating tissues throughout the body. When these cells were injected into muscles in one of the hind legs of mice that had been prevented from contracting for a period of two weeks, the researchers saw a much greater improvement in muscle mass restoration compared to mice that didn't receive an injection. After two weeks, mice that had received the cell injection had fully recovered, while those that hadn't still exhibited a significant loss of muscle mass.

"Just as the mice were becoming mobile again, we transplanted the pericytes and we found that there was full recovery of both muscle mass and the vasculature, too," says University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Marni Boppart, who led the research.