Potential Mitigation of the Skeletal Complications of Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy with Vibration

A mouse model (mdx) for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD)1 was used to evaluate the ability of a unique mechanical stimulus, low magnitude, high frequency, mechanical signal (LMMS), to ameliorate the skeletal consequences of DMD. The skeleton of the mdx deviates from the wild type (wt) by 8 wks of age. LMMS did not aggravate the sarcopenia in these mice, and showed a trend in producing an anabolic response in the mdx strain in comparison to the age-matched control as seen in the 64% increase in double labeled surface. In vivo CT scans of the calf muscle were able to determine the hypertrophy in the mdx mice, which is a characteristic of DMD, but not the regions of degeneration. LMMS looks to be a potential treatment for the skeletal pathology of DMD without accelerating the muscle degradation.