Doctoral Dissertation Research: The evolutionary history of the human and ape knee

两足行走，或直立行走，是现代和祖先人类的一个决定性特征。这是人类血统最早的特征之一，在塑造我们的行为和解剖结构方面发挥了重要作用。为了更好地理解两足动物的进化，许多研究人员研究了骨盆、足部和脊柱，它们都在两足动物的运动中发挥作用；尽管膝关节在人类两足行走中起着至关重要的作用，但人们对膝关节的关注却有所减少。本博士论文研究项目研究膝关节的运动和解剖学，研究结果对理解人类直立行走的起源和进化，以及膝关节的功能解剖学都有重要意义。鉴于美国膝关节置换术的高频率，这提供了一个关键的例子，说明进化的理解如何能够潜在地告知医学观点，以及预防和干预损伤的方法。本研究的目的是研究现代灵长类动物膝关节解剖与运动功能之间的关系，以帮助理解古人类和类人猿化石记录中的运动行为模式。本项目分三个互补阶段进行，结合现代灵长类动物运动学数据、现代灵长类动物骨骼数据以及从古人类和类人猿化石的股骨远端、胫骨近端和髌骨收集的数据。这些阶段包括收集现存灵长类动物两足行走时步态和膝关节伸展程度的运动学数据，博物馆收藏的同一物种个体的骨骼样本测量，以及应用前两个阶段的结果来解释人类和猿类化石记录中的解剖学。最终，这项研究的结果可以为古人类关于现代人类两足动物进化的身体形式的观点提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Bipedalism, or upright walking, is a defining characteristic of modern and ancestral humans. It was one of the earliest defining traits of the human lineage and played a significant role in shaping our behavior and anatomy. To better understand the evolution of bipedalism, many researchers have studied the pelvis, foot, and vertebral column, all of which play a part in bipedal movement; somewhat less attention has been paid to the knee joint despite its essential role during human bipedalism. This doctoral dissertation research project studies the movement and anatomy of the knee joint and the results of the research can be relevant both for understanding the origins and evolution of human upright walking, as well as functional anatomy of the knee joint. Given the high frequency of knee replacement in the U.S., this offers one key example of how evolutionary understandings can potentially inform medical perspectives, and approaches to injury prevention and intervention.The goal of this research is to investigate the relationship between knee joint anatomy and locomotor function in modern primates to help understand the pattern of locomotor behavior in hominin and hominoid fossil records. This project is carried out in three complementary phases that combine modern primate kinematic data, modern primate skeletal data, and data collected from the distal femur, proximal tibia, and patella of fossil hominins and hominoids. These phases include collection of kinematic data on gait and degree of knee extension in living primates as they walk bipedally, skeletal sample measurements in individuals of the same species from museum collections, and application of results of the first two phases to interpret anatomy in the human and ape fossil record. Ultimately the results of this research can inform paleoanthropological perspectives regarding the body form from which modern human bipedalism evolved.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.