Endogenous lateral electric fields around bovine corneal lesions are necessary for and can enhance normal rates of wound healing.

The strength of the electric fields in the vicinity of 1.5 mm circular lesions in the bovine cornea has been found to influence the rate of re-epithelization. A decrease in the field strength by submersion of the lesions or by treating the lesions with the Na+-channel blocker, benzamil, significantly retarded healing. An increase in the field strength of lesions treated with Na+-depleted Hanks' solution, by the addition of direct current, increased epithelization. Epithelization was fastest in wounds with field strengths raised to - 80 mV/mm, more than twice the normal field strength present in wounds maintained in Hanks' solution alone. Epithelization decreased, however, when the field strengths were increased to -120 mV/mm. A similar pattern was also observed when the field's polarity was reversed. By manipulating and monitoring the field strengths, we have been able to show for the first time that increased wound field strengths enhance corneal wound epithelization, and that field strengths with reversed polarity also enhance this epithelization.