Journal of Anatomy最新文献

{"title":"Reconstructing the major skull myology of the giant stem-amphibian Mastodonsaurus: A case study for early tetrapods.","authors":"Daniel Schwarz, Stephan Lautenschlager, Florian Witzmann, Raphael Moreno, Eudald Mujal, Rainer R Schoch","doi":"10.1111/joa.70239","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70239","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Devonian fish-to-tetrapod transition and the subsequent conquest of land involved multiple amphibious stem and early tetrapod lineages, yet how these animals reduced their dependence on aquatic environments remains uncertain. Feeding is central to this transition, as early tetrapods likely moved from predominantly aquatic suction feeding to jaw-based prey prehension and processing. Although recent functional approaches-including morphometrics, functional morphology and computational modelling-offer new perspectives, their interpretive strength depends on realistic soft-tissue inputs, particularly cranial musculature. Here, we reconstruct the principal cranio-mandibular (skull) musculature of the Middle Triassic capitosaur temnospondyl Mastodonsaurus giganteus to provide an explicit anatomical foundation for future functional and modelling studies of stem and early tetrapods and to refine ecological interpretations for this species. We formulate alternative muscle hypotheses within an extant phylogenetic bracket (EPB) framework that explicitly reflects uncertainty in temnospondyl placement (temnospondyl versus lepospondyl origin of lissamphibians). We developed hypotheses from a literature review and digital dissections of contrast-enhanced soft-tissue μCT datasets from selected extant bracket taxa and outgroups and assessed them against osteological correlates in M. giganteus. Our reconstruction indicates a more differentiated adductor system than commonly assumed, with subdivision of the adductor mandibulae externus and internus complexes and an inferred intramandibular component consistent with a cartilaginous sesamoid ('cartilago transiliens') functioning as a force-transmitting pulley. We further provide osteological evidence for previously unrecognised pterygoideus components, suggesting additional jaw-closing capacity and a potential contribution to rapid gape formation. The 'tongue' in M. giganteus was likely comparatively weak and less flexibly movable, while as a stereospondyl, it possessed a comparatively strong neck and specialised anterior ribs. Collectively, these traits are consistent with a mainly crocodile-like bite-and-hold prehension ecology and likely indicate kinetic-inertial feeding. Our muscle reconstruction further suggests a more balanced jaw-opening/closing system that may have enabled compensatory suction during gape formation.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13575354/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148968878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When Virchow's law fails: Crouzon syndrome as a test case for quantitative suture closure-endocranial shape relationships.","authors":"F W R Steup, E V Groenenboom, O Delassus, A Balzeau, A Profico, G Paternoster, M Moazen, R H Khonsari, L S Van De Lande, M Taverne","doi":"10.1111/joa.70237","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70237","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Crouzon syndrome is a syndromic craniosynostosis characterized by premature fusion of cranial sutures and variability in cranial phenotype, which is poorly explained by classical growth rules such as Virchow's law. This study tested whether quantitative, continuous assessment of calvarial suture patency can help explain endocranial shape variability when categorical suture descriptions fail. We retrospectively analyzed preoperative cranial CT scans from children with FGFR2-related bicoronal craniosynostosis and age-matched controls (birth to 4 years). Endocasts were reconstructed using a semiautomated pipeline and analyzed with three-dimensional geometric morphometrics. Suture patency of major calvarial sutures was quantified as a continuous measure and converted into age-adjusted residuals, allowing deviations from control closure dynamics to be assessed independently of age. Intracranial volume increased with age at comparable rates in both groups, indicating preserved global endocranial growth. However, endocranial shape and its allometric relationship to growth differed between groups. While age-adjusted suture patency showed only weak associations with shape in controls, suture residuals covaried strongly with coherent, system-level endocast shape changes in Crouzon patients, including alterations in anteroposterior proportions and cranial fossa configuration. Morphological clusters did not map one-to-one onto suture closure patterns, indicating nonlocal and context-dependent effects. These findings suggest that suture-based models such as Virchow's law fail to predict cranial shape in syndromic craniosynostosis. By treating suture patency as a continuous, age-adjusted variable embedded within a coupled brain-skull growth system, this study suggests that Crouzon syndrome could act as a test case for quantitative, system-level models of craniofacial development.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13575353/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148968875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Immune proteomic associations with indices of cortical development in 5-year-old children.","authors":"Aaron Barron, Aylin Rosberg, Jetro J Tuulari, Minna Lukkarinen, Harri Merisaari, Eero Silver, Venla Kumpulainen, Anni Copeland, Ekaterina Saukko, Alex M Dickens, Matej Oresic, Tuulia Hyötylainen, Linnea Karlsson, Hasse Karlsson, Isabella L C Mariani Wigley, Elmo P Pulli","doi":"10.1111/joa.70225","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70225","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The immune system has emerged as a critical factor influencing neurodevelopment in offspring. While this is increasingly well-studied in the context of maternal immune activation (MIA), the relationship between postnatal immune activation and brain development in childhood is far less studied. In the current study, we performed targeted immune proteomics to analyse 356 inflammation-associated proteins and examine whether peripheral immune physiology is associated with multimodal neuroimaging metrics, brain growth centiles, and cortical microstructure, in 5-year-old children. We included 101 typically developing children with immune proteomics and multimodal neuroimaging data covering structural and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that was modelled with FSL's linked independent component analysis (FLICA) to yield 10 multimodal brain components. For a subset of the analyses utilising immune proteomics and structural brain growth centile data, the sample size was 126 children. We observed consistent negative associations between serum immune proteins and both grey matter volume growth and global cortical thickness; for the latter, associations were statistically significant after false discovery rate correction for CXCL10, IL17A, and LILRB4. Similarly, many immune proteins were associated with increased mean diffusivity across the cortex, most notably LAMP3, NCR1, SIGLEC1, FASLG, and CXCL10 in the right medial orbitofrontal cortex. Collectively, these findings provide the first characterisation of the relationship between immune physiology and brain structure in children, and demonstrate notable associations with global cerebrocortical development. This should be extended by future studies with larger samples and multiple sampling.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13562773/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148929949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The impact of footwear on human talar trabecular architecture.","authors":"Hannah N Farrell, Andrea Luková, Sebastian Bachmann, Karley Spriggs, Alexander Synek, Dieter H Pahr, Zewdi J Tsegai","doi":"10.1111/joa.70236","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70236","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The evolution of habitual bipedalism was a defining milestone in human history, yet fossil evidence indicates substantial variation in how bipedality was practiced. Trabecular bone, which responds throughout life to joint loading and orientation, offers a powerful way to investigate these differences. Interpreting variation in fossil hominins, however, requires a reliable baseline of intraspecific variation in modern humans, accounting for differences in lifestyle, mobility, and habitual behaviors. Many modern skeletal collections derive from postindustrial populations whose activity patterns, footwear use, and health profiles differ markedly from past populations, potentially biasing interpretations. Thus, habitually shod, postindustrial humans may not be the best proxy for the loading environments experienced by early hominins, whereas unshod individuals provide a closer approximation of barefoot locomotion. To explore the effects of footwear on internal bone structure, we examined trabecular architecture in the talus of habitually shod (N = 40) modern humans (Homo sapiens) from recent donation-based skeletal collections and habitually unshod (N = 16) individuals from the Andaman Island, Khoisan, and Aka populations, representing diverse ecological and subsistence contexts, using high-resolution micro-computed tomographic scans. Trabecular parameters-including bone volume fraction (BV/TV), relative BV/TV (rBV/TV), trabecular thickness (Tb.Th), separation (Tb.Sp), number (Tb.N), and degree of anisotropy (DA)-were quantified using canonical holistic morphometric analysis (cHMA). Shod individuals exhibited higher mean BV/TV and greater variability in BV/TV, suggesting that the talus remains heavily loaded due to its central role in weight bearing during bipedal gait, and that different types of footwear create variable force distributions across the ankle. The spatial distribution of rBV/TV revealed further differences between the groups: shod individuals showed higher rBV/TV in the medial and posterior talus, consistent with more dorsiflexed and medially loaded ankle postures, whereas unshod individuals had elevated rBV/TV in the talar head and neck, potentially reflecting loading associated to squatting or climbing. Shod individuals also exhibited higher mean DA indicating more strongly organized and directionally constrained trabeculae. Mean BV/TV was likewise higher in the shod group and primarily driven by greater trabecular thickness, as trabecular separation and number were broadly similar between groups, suggesting loading differences associated with footwear primarily influence BV/TV and trabecular anisotropy. By establishing clear patterns of trabecular variation between shod and unshod modern humans, this study provides a robust comparative framework for interpreting locomotor behavior in fossil hominins, while highlighting the need to further disentangle the effects of footwear from differences in body size, stature, subsistence ","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13551078/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148906357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neuroanatomy education through the years: Revisiting the teaching slides used by Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark.","authors":"Shiva A Nischal, Kush M Kale, Katherine Tourigny, Mohammed Abuelem, Gretchen Greene, Rachel Walsh, Zoltán Molnár","doi":"10.1111/joa.70235","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70235","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark (1895-1971) was a pioneering British anatomist, physician, and evolutionary biologist whose legacy spans the foundational development of twentieth century neuroanatomy, primate biology, and medical education. From his formative experiences as a young medical officer in the First World War to his later academic ascendancy at the University of Oxford, Le Gros Clark exemplified a rare fusion of clinical insight, anatomical precision, and philosophical curiosity. His tenure in Borneo, where he studied primates in their natural habitats, enriched his evolutionary perspective, while his later role in debunking the Piltdown Man fraud cemented his place as a steadfast defender of scientific integrity. At Oxford, Le Gros Clark assembled a singular collection of neuroanatomical teaching specimens, many of which remain preserved today within the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics, University of Oxford. Through detailed analysis of selected slides, including cases of tabes dorsalis, disseminated sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, syringomyelia, and the pineal gland's nervus conarii, we reflect on how Le Gros Clark's anatomical interpretations anticipated many of the concepts central to contemporary neuroscience, and on how his legacy has influenced generations of students and scientists. What emerges from these materials is that Le Gros Clark taught students not simply to memorize, but to observe, interpret, and understand the functional significance of anatomical structures in health and disease.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13554389/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148911935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What's your angle? Quantifying muscle pennation from diceCT scans in an open-source framework.","authors":"Jessica H Arbour","doi":"10.1111/joa.70233","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70233","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced computed tomography (diceCT) approaches have improved our ability to non-destructively sample soft tissue anatomy in animals. Key aspects of muscle fiber architecture, like muscle fiber length and pennation, can in theory be reconstructed from diceCT scans; however, manual segmentation is laborious and time-consuming. Several software applications have been developed to automate reconstruction of muscle fibers from diceCT data, including both open-source and proprietary options. This paper expands on the GoodFibes package, an R-language based toolkit for detecting, reconstructing, and visualizing muscle fibers from diceCT image stack datasets, to include the analysis of pennation angle in 3D. Fiber orientation is determined via principal component analysis of fiber path coordinate data, and muscle fibers may be aligned in the R environment to a tendon or line of action, permitting the direct calculation of pennation angle. I demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach using an ant mandibular muscle dataset that has been previously studied using manual digital dissection as well as both open source and proprietary approaches for muscle fiber detection and analysis. I also apply these new utilities to a comparative case study of Percid fish biting muscles. Overall, I find that this approach is effective at estimating muscle pennation angles in the ant dataset, with performance comparable to other software applications. Application of these new utilities to Percid jaw muscles reveals a pattern of divergent pennation between the adductor mandibulae (AM) pars malaris and AM pars rictostegalis in the Darter subfamily, a group of small, benthic fishes with innovative jaw anatomy and kinematics. Large, predatory Percids and small, benthic species living in streams may have different strategies for maximizing bite force proportional to body size. Overall, these additions expand the growing open-source toolkit for the analysis of diceCT data, and in particular the flexible R programming language environment that is widely used by biologists.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13550731/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148906342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modelling compressive loading in large-bodied mammals reveals distinct biomechanical strategies in proboscidean humeri.","authors":"Nicolas Ferdinand Wagner, Narimane Chatar, Jesse James Hennekam","doi":"10.1111/joa.70234","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70234","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Proboscideans exhibit limb morphologies specialised for supporting extreme body masses under predominantly compressive loading. These graviportal adaptations include repositioning of the limb bones closer to the trunk, resulting in a columnar stance. Among proboscideans, two humeral morphotypes have been proposed (slender and robust), yet their functional significance under compressive loading remains poorly understood. Finite element analysis (FEA) is applied to evaluate biomechanical performances of proboscidean humeri subject to axial compression, simulating conditions associated with a columnar stance and deviations from it. Our results reveal clear differences between morphotypes, with slender humeri performing worse than the robust morphotype and functioning optimally under near-axial loading. Robust humeri consistently exhibit lower peak stress under both neutral and off-axis loading and show considerable resistance to mediolateral stresses. Across all taxa, stress magnitudes generally increase when deviating from a neutral orientation, especially during posterior loading orientations, highlighting the mechanical importance of maintaining columnar limb posture. These findings support the hypothesis that robust morphologies are better adapted to resist multidirectional stresses, while slender morphologies favour energetic and locomotor efficiency. This study demonstrates the applicability of FEA in assessing compressive performance in postcranial elements and provides a novel framework for investigating biomechanical adaptations in graviportal taxa.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13550740/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148906314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The XenCart Protocol: A method for Alcian blue labeling and quantitative analysis of craniofacial cartilage in Xenopus.","authors":"Umar Aziz, Leona Bhandari, Claudia Lizama, Riya Maurya, Amanda J G Dickinson","doi":"10.1111/joa.70238","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70238","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Craniofacial birth defects, such as cleft lip and palate, are among the most common congenital anomalies and often arise from disruptions in early facial patterning. Many of these defects are linked to environmental teratogens, yet such exposures cannot be directly evaluated in humans, making animal models essential for evaluating developmental risks. Xenopus laevis offers a powerful solution: its tadpoles develop externally, share deeply conserved craniofacial patterning mechanisms with humans, and provide an accessible platform for uncovering how environmental exposures reshape facial structures during development. Here, we present the XenCart Protocol, a reproducible workflow for Alcian blue staining and quantitative morphometric analysis of Xenopus craniofacial cartilage. This method provides clear visualization of individual cartilage elements and can be readily applied to investigate genetic or environmental perturbations. The Xenopus craniofacial skeleton contains distinct cartilaginous structures that perform key biomechanical functions and share strong homology with regions of the human craniofacial skeleton. These similarities allow direct comparison of developmental outcomes across vertebrates. As part of a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE), the XenCart Protocol was used to measure jaw cartilage dimensions in tadpoles exposed to an emerging teratogen, e-liquids were used in vaping. X. laevis embryos exposed to e-liquid showed reductions across the major craniofacial cartilages, along with altered cartilage proportions. Together, these changes are consistent with an overall reduction in facial size and altered craniofacial shape. These findings also pinpoint the precise regions of the jaw most affected by e-liquid exposure, providing a foundation for uncovering the developmental mechanisms driving these craniofacial changes. The ability to detect clear differences in specific structures shows that the protocol is sensitive and well suited for student-led research. In summary, the XenCart Protocol provides a standardized, scalable method for quantifying craniofacial cartilage development and offers a powerful platform for both mechanistic research and undergraduate training in developmental biology and toxicology.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13547940/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148900629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Human cerebral arterial morphogenesis explored by 3D microscopic imaging of cleared embryos: Bridging the gap between embryonic and adult anatomy.","authors":"Eimad Shotar, Raphaël Blain, Aymeric Nadjem, Nermine Saidi, Megumi Inoue, Daniel Smith-Paredes, Miccaella Vergara, Armelle Lesaunier, Quentin Rappeneau, Joséphine Blevinal, Gérard Couly, Julien Burel, Julien Allard, Kevin Premat, Stéphanie Lenck, Pierre-Marie Chiaroni, Erwah Kalsoum, Maryne Toupin, Séverine Mazaud-Guittot, Diane Rebourcet, Paolo Giacobini, Olivier Naggara, Hugo Gortais, Grégoire Boulouis, Alexis Guédon, Philippe Gailloud, Frédéric Glicenstein, Anaïs Favre, Frédéric Clarençon, Yorick Gitton, Alain Chédotal","doi":"10.1111/joa.70224","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70224","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The anatomy of cerebral arteries impacts cerebrovascular diseases, their management, and their prognosis. Postnatal cerebrovascular anatomy can be understood only through detailed knowledge of the developmental events leading to mature cerebral vessels. Current knowledge about human embryology relies on data collected in the first half of the 20th century using traditional histological methods. In this study, we provide a narrative description of human embryonic cerebral arterial development based on whole-mount immunostaining, tissue clearing, three-dimensional (3D) light sheet microscopy imaging, and anatomically informed virtual segmentation of human embryos. The findings are compared with adult radiological anatomy explored by magnetic resonance imaging and 3D digital subtraction angiography. We provide a detailed account of the development of cerebral arteries including the circle of Willis and its major branches, the vertebrobasilar circulation, the ophthalmic artery, and related vessels. Explanations for several anatomical variants are provided. Pediatric and adult anatomy in the context of brain arteriovenous and vein of Galen malformations is compared with embryological data. Finally, we provide a direct comparison of embryonic and adult anatomical nomenclatures and clarify the identity of homonymous arterial segments. These data shed new light on both embryonic development of cerebral arteries and postnatal anatomy.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13547941/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148900614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Functional morphology of trabecular bone in the calcaneus of African apes","authors":"Christine M. Harper,&nbsp;Biren A. Patel","doi":"10.1111/joa.70141","DOIUrl":"10.1111/joa.70141","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The relationships between whole-bone trabecular structure and mechanical loading have been well-documented in the human calcaneus. In contrast, these relationships have not been thoroughly investigated in most nonhuman primates. A recent analysis of gorillas found that calcaneal trabecular architecture varies among species generally along locomotor and ecological lines. Gorillas are the most terrestrial of the nonhuman great apes, however, which limits our comparative context to understand trabecular bone functional adaptation in both the human foot and that of closely related extant and extinct taxa. Here we analyze whole-bone calcaneal trabecular variation among a sample of both <i>Pan</i> (<i>n</i> = 16) and <i>Gorilla</i> (<i>n</i> = 22) to continue exploring the factors governing trabecular bone adaptation in the foot, as the two genera differ in both degree of arboreality and adopt variable foot postures during locomotion. Calcaneal trabecular architecture was quantified from micro-CT scans. An initial three-dimensional geometric morphometric sliding semilandmark analysis was run to position 150 volumes of interest within each bone. Trabecular thickness (Tb.Th), trabecular spacing (Tb.Sp), and bone volume fraction (BV/TV) were calculated in ImageJ and MATLAB for each VOI. Parameter distributions were summarized using principal component analysis and visualized using color maps. Non-parametric MANOVAs designed for high-dimensional data were run to test for significant differences in each parameter between genera. <i>Pan</i> and <i>Gorilla</i> significantly differ in whole-bone Tb.Th, Tb.Sp, and BV/TV (<i>p &lt;</i> 0.001 for all analyses). Both African apes exhibit relatively higher Tb.Th and BV/TV in the anterior half of the calcaneus relative to the posterior half; however, the anteroposterior difference is exaggerated in <i>Gorilla.</i> This likely reflects a more consistent loading pattern in <i>Gorilla</i> as a consequence of their relatively more frequent use of terrestrial behaviors. <i>Pan</i> exhibits relatively higher Tb.Th and BV/TV in the calcaneal tuberosity compared to <i>Gorilla</i>, which may be indicative of a higher magnitude and frequency of forces from the triceps surae muscle complex for vertical climbing in <i>Pan</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":14971,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anatomy","volume":"249 4","pages":"883-898"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13399063/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147512172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}