Dissertation Research: Growth of the Human Fetal Craniofacial Complex Characterized in Three Dimensions

对人体解剖学生长发育的描述是体质人类学长期关注的问题。这不仅是对现代人的兴趣，也是描述随着进化时间发生的增长模式变化的一种手段。在个体的发展过程中，形态上的复杂变化绝不是容易描述或量化的。这项建议的目的是描述现代人在胎儿和产后早期的颅骨和面部的生长发育。这将涉及两个阶段。将通过使用计算机断层扫描来生成关于一系列头颅地标位置变化的数据。一旦数据可用，就可以使用两个数学模型进行分析：有限元比例分析和欧几里德距离矩阵分析。这些模型将使PI能够更全面地描述胎儿时期人类头骨形状的变化。此外，将有可能开始描述这一时期正常人类生长的变化范围。最终，这些数据将允许讨论整个灵长类动物的生长模式的变化。

The description of human anatomical growth and development is a longstanding interest of physical anthropology. Not only is this of interest vis a vis modern humans, but also as a means of describing the altering patterns of growth which have occurred over evolutionary time. The complex changes in morphology which proceed in the development of an individual are by no means easy to describe or quantify. The objective of this proposal is to characterize the growth of the basicranium and face of modern humans during fetal and early post-partum periods. This will involve two stages. Data on the alterations in the positions of a series of cranial landmarks will be generated through the use of computed tomography. Once available, the data can then be analyzed using two mathematical models: Finite Element Scaling Analysis and Euclidean Distance Matrix Analysis. These models will allow the PIs to more fully describe the alterations in the shape of the human skull over the the fetal period. Additionally it will be possible to start to describe the range of variation in normal human growth during this period. Ultimately, such data will allow for discussion of the variation in growth patterns seen throughout the primates.