ABSTRACT
It has long been known that living adult mammalian bone tissue adapts its material properties, and that whole bones adapt their shape, in response to altered mechanical loading.
Progress is being made in understanding the cellular mechanisms that accomplish the absorption and deposition of bone tissue. The physiological mechanism by which the mechanical loading applied to bone is sensed by the tissue and the mechanism by which the sensed signal is transmitted to the cells that accomplish the surface deposition, removal, and maintenance have not been identified. The purpose of this chapter is to review some of the background research on these mechanosensory mechanisms and to outline candidates for the mechanosensory system. (See Burger et al.
