Recent advances in transgenic mouse technology provide novel models to study cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology. In light of these developments, there is an increasing need for understanding cardiovascular function and blood flow control in normal mice. To this end we have used intravital microscopy to investigate vasomotor control in arterioles of the superfused cremaster muscle preparation of anesthetized C57Bl6 mice. Spontaneous resting tone increased with branch order and was enhanced by oxygen. Norepinephrine and acetylcholine (ACh) caused concentration-dependent vasoconstriction and vasodilation, respectively. Microiontophoresis of ACh evoked vasodilation that conducted along arterioles; the local (direct) response was inhibited by N(omega)-nitro-L-arginine (LNA), and both local and conducted responses were inhibited by 17-octadecynoic acid (17-ODYA). Microejection of KCl evoked a biphasic response: a transient conducted vasoconstriction (inhibited by nifedipine), followed by a conducted vasodilation that was insensitive to LNA, indomethacin, and 17-ODYA. Phenylephrine evoked focal vasoconstriction that did not conduct. Perivascular sympathetic nerve stimulation evoked constriction along arterioles that was inhibited by tetrodotoxin. These findings indicate that for arterioles in the mouse cremaster muscle, nitric oxide and endothelial-derived hyperpolarizing factor (as shown by LNA and 17-ODYA interventions, respectively) mediate vasodilatory responses to ACh but not to KCl, and that vasomotor responses spread along arterioles by multiple pathways of cell-to-cell communication.