Unlike many peripheral vascular beds, the sympathetic nervous system exerts little control on cerebral blood flow. The contractile response of isolated rabbit middle cerebral artery (MCA) segments to electrical field stimulation of its intramural nerves is less than in a similar-sized artery from the ear. This study was undertaken to characterize and compare the perivascular neuromuscular relationships and innervation density of similar-sized arteries varying in diameter from these two different regional arterial beds to see if there were structural correlates for these functional differences.