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

两足行走，或直立行走，是现代人和祖先的一个决定性特征。它是人类血统最早的定义特征之一，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、脚和脊柱，所有这些都在两足动物的运动中发挥了作用；尽管膝关节在人类两足动物中扮演着重要的角色，但人们对膝关节的关注相对较少。本博士论文研究项目研究膝关节的运动和解剖，其研究结果对理解人类直立行走的起源和演化以及膝关节的功能解剖都有重要意义。鉴于膝关节置换在美国的频率很高，这提供了一个关键的例子，说明了进化理解如何潜在地为医学角度提供信息，以及如何预防和干预伤害。本研究的目标是调查现代灵长类动物膝关节解剖和运动功能之间的关系，以帮助理解人类和类人化石记录中的运动行为模式。该项目分三个互补阶段进行，结合了现代灵长类运动学数据、现代灵长类骨骼数据以及从古人类和古人类的股骨远端、胫骨近端和膝盖骨收集的数据。这些阶段包括收集现存灵长类动物两足行走时的步态和膝关节伸展程度的运动学数据，从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学关于现代人类两足动物进化的身体形式的观点提供信息。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.