Nociceptive neuroplasticity of the murine knee joint precedes severe structural joint damage in a surgical model of OA

Purpose: Surgical destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) in the mouse knee results in slowly progressive osteoarthritis (OA), characterized by mild-to-moderate joint damage by week 8 and severe damage by week 16 after surgery. Progressive joint damage is associated with pain-related behaviors. Using NaV1.8-tdTomato reporter mice, which express a bright red fluorescent tdTomato reporter in >90% of C-nociceptors (pain-sensing neurons), we...