“…The fasting glucose levels were determined from rat tail blood samples prior to (day 0) or 48 h (day 2) after STZ injection by using a one-touch glucometer (LifeScan Inc., Milpitas, CA, USA). Rats were considered diabetic when presented a glycemia higher than 300 mg/dL (Table 1) [9,11,12]. Twenty-eight days after STZ-injection [22] balloon injury was performed in the left (ipsilateral) carotid artery of anesthetized rats [4,[7][8][9].…”