Damaging Fatigue Loading Stimulates Increases in Periosteal Vascularity at Sites of Bone Formation in the Rat Ulna

Bone formation in a variety of contexts depends on angiogenesis; however, there are few reports of the vascular response to osteogenic skeletal loading. We used the rat forelimb compression model to characterize vascular changes after fatigue loading. The right forelimbs of 72 adult rats were loaded cyclically in vivo to one of four displacement levels, to produce four discrete levels of ulnar damage. Rats were killed 3–14 days after loading, …