The healthy synovial membrane is divided into a fluid-facing lining and a blood vessel-supporting sublining layer. Fibroblasts comprise the majority of cells in both layers and are important for maintaining structural integrity, homeostasis and lubrication. In the anterior knee compartment, the sublining layer is adjacent to the fat pads, and mainly consists of adipocytes. This proximity between fibroblasts and adipocytes suggests a close interaction, but the mechanism by which this might occur has not been studied in detail. A recent preprint (not peer-reviewed) shows that adipocytes regulate homeostatic fibroblast populations in the joint and identifies cortisol signalling as a key mediator.