The aim of this study was to investigate, through a longitudinal tracking, whether gender influences morphological characteristics on trabeucular bone of tibia during unloading. 12 male and 15 female ICR mice at 6 week of age were used and randomly allocated into two groups in each gender; unloading and normal group, respectively. Mice in unloading group were operated on denervation (sciatic neurectomy). The tibiae were scanned by using in vivo micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) at 0 day (before denervation) and after 14 days. Structural parameters and BMD on tibia were measured. In female, BV/TV (65%), Tb.Th (5%), Tb.N (61%) and BMD (62%) were significantly decreased and BS/BV (17%), Tb.Sp (54%), SMI (19%) and Tb.Pf (75%) were significantly increased after unloading (p＜0.05). In male, BV/TV (1%) and Tb.N (10%) were significantly decreased and SMI (5%) was significantly increased after unloading (p＜0.05). In addition, trabeuclar bone loss of female was significantly bigger than that of male (p＜0.05). These results indicated that effects of unloading on trabecular bone in growing mice might have difference between female and male, although unloading result in loss of quantity and quality on trabecular bone both female and male.
