Ultrashort echo time (UTE) MRI is able to assess long T2 tissues such as articular cartilage (AC) and short T2 tissues such as meniscus. Early stage of osteoarthritis is hypothesized to affect the mechanical properties of AC, sooner and quicker than its morphology. This study focused on the application of UTE imaging, including UTE magnetization transfer (UTE-MT) modelling, adiabatic T1r, T1 and T2* measurements in cadaveric human knee joints subject to sequential mechanical loading. Compression load application resulted in significant increases in macromolecular fraction estimated in AC and meniscus, obtained by two-pool MT modeling. T1, T1ρ and T2* biomarkers did not show consistent trends.
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