Heat maps and profiles of subchondral bone thickness obtained by micro-CT over OA temporal progression.

<p>(A) Representative pairs of contralateral (left) and DMM-operated (right) tibial top surfaces at baseline, 1-, 2-, 4- and 12-weeks post-DMM, showing progressive subchondral bone thickening in the medial compartment of DMM tibiae, where colour-coding changed from orange (~150 μm) at 1-week towards white (~300 μm) at 12-weeks. Blue arrows in DMM maps indicate the presence of medial osteophytes and dashed white lines delimit the location where medial to lateral profiles were extracted for both contralateral (B) and DMM-operated (C) tibiae. In destabilised joints (C), the peak thickness in the medial compartment was continuously increased from baseline to 20-weeks post-DMM (increment of ~135 μm, indicated by the dashed arrow) while in contralateral (B) this difference was less marked (~50 μm, indicated by the dashed arrow). The superimposition of all profiles in the lateral compartment suggested that no changes occurred in this area.