Analysis of Bone Remodeling

Abstract

The preceding chapter provided a general description of the structure and biology of bone and cartilage. We learned how bones grow, are sculpted by modeling and continuously renewed by remodeling, and repair themselves when fractured. All of these are important processes, but in this chapter we focus on remodeling, for two reasons. First, remodeling is the only one of these processes that occurs throughout one’s lifetime. Growth and modeling are essentially restricted to children, and fracture healing is restricted to even more isolated periods of time. Second, because bone remodeling occurs throughout life, it plays a dominant role in determining the structure of most of the tissues in the skeleton, most of the time. Consequently, remodeling is a primary determinant of the mechanical properties of bone, their resistance to fatigue failure, and their ability to function in a changing mechanical environment. Therefore, we need to develop our understanding of bone remodeling in some depth to pursue our study of skeletal tissue mechanics.

...there is no philosophy that is not founded upon knowledge of the phenomena, but to get any profit from this knowledge, it is absolutely necessary to be a mathematician.

Letter from Daniel Bernoulli to his nephew, John III Bernoulli, January 7, 1763.

Good mathematical models don’t start with the mathematics but with a deep study of certain natural phenomena.

Stephen Smale, 1930-