Biomechanical Properties of the Rat Knee Joint Capsule: Preliminary Experiment Using Normal Knee Joints

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to clarify the biomechanical properties of the capsule in a normal rat knee joint. [Participants and Methods] Femur-capsule-tibia composite specimens prepared from the hindlimbs of five 8-week-old male Wistar rats were subjected to tensile testing. [Results] The waveforms of the length-tension curves showed steep and repeated declines in some individual rats (three out of five samples) while in others (two out of five samples) they were not repeated. [Conclusion] It was found that some capsules in the rat knee fossa had a mixture of cruciate ligament-like fibers while others did not.