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Volumetric muscle loss (VML) injuries are a traumatic loss of muscle, limiting regenerative potential and resulting in chronic loss of function. In isolation the bone adjacent to the VML injury is often overlooked, but known association between the tissues are important to long-term health and function. Recent work suggests decrements in both bones and muscles of VML-injured limbs, as well as a distinct relationship between VML and bone health. The clinically injured VML population is expected to undergo considerable periods of physical inactivity or a long-term sedentary lifestyle, and thus decreased loading, after VML. Our objective was to investigate the concomitant impact of VML on the adjacent bone, with and without the restriction of physical activity (reduced ~50% of daily ambulation). We hypothesized that with restriction of physical activity, the tibia adjacent to the VML would have functional impairments greater than those with normal physical activity (daily ambulation >1km). Adult male C57BI/6J mice (n=41) underwent unilateral VML to the posterior hindlimb compartment or served as uninjured age-matched controls, then were randomized to standard or restricted activity cages for 8-wks. Terminally (age 20-wks), mice underwent in vivo muscle function testing. Adjacent tibia were assessed for strength, mid‐diaphysis cortical geometry, and intrinsic material properties, and the metaphyseal trabecular bone structure was evaluated by microcomputed tomography and three‐point bending. A subset of tibias was saved for histologic staining (H S10OD025177. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.
Lentz et al. (Wed,) studied this question.