Objective To investigate the changes of microarchitecture and gene expression of subchondral bone in the initial stage of traumatic arthritis ,to explore the characteristics of subchondral bone remodeling and its role in the articular cartilage de‐generation .Methods The medial meniscal tear (MMT) was performed on the right knees of 13 SD rats to simulate the traumatic osteoarthritis ,while sham operation on the control group .Three weeks later ,all the rats were executed and dissected ,with proximal tibiae being kept and distributed into the two groups ,10 respectively .Micro‐computed tomography (micro‐CT) was adopted to re‐construct and analyze the subchondral bone .After being fixed by 4% paraformaldehyde ,all the samples were decalcified until six weeks passed ,followed by paraffin‐sectioning ,safranin O and fast green staining ,and examining and photographing under an ordina‐ry optical microscope .The RNA of another 3 SD rats′subchondral bone was extracted ,and a real‐time PCR test was carried out to illuminate the expression variation of bone‐formation marker genes (ALP ,RUNX2 ,and OCN) ,and bone‐resorption marker genes (TRAP ,CTSK and MMP9) ,between the two groups .Results Three weeks after MMT surgery ,subchondral bone disorders were observed among the experimental samples through micro‐CT scanning .There was lesser BV/TV ,Conn .D and Tb .Th(P<0 .05) and more Tb .Sp(P<0 .05) in the experimental group compared with the control group .In the pathological section ,arthritic degen‐eration was not spotted in both groups ,but trabeculae of the experimental group were found to be sparse .Compared with control group ,the level of mRNA expression of the bone‐formation marker genes of the experimental group was decreased(P<0 .05) ,while bone‐resorption related genes increased(P<0 .05) .Conclusion The model of initial traumatic osteoarthritis induced by MMT in rats′knees showed an active bone remodeling ,more bone absorbing than bone formation ,lowered bone volume ,and microarchitec‐ture changing of the subchondral bone .