Journal of Anatomy

Talpid moles (Talpidae, Eulipotyphla) are mammals highly specialised in burrowing using their forelimbs. Fossoriality has allowed moles to expand their ecological niche by enabling access to subterranean resources and spaces. This specialisation in burrowing has led to adaptations in the forelimb bones of moles for humeral rotation digging, a distinctive strategy unparalleled among other diggers. While bone robustness has been examined in moles through external morphology, the adaptation of bone microstructure to digging strategy remains unclear...

There has been a long debate about the possibility of multiple contemporaneous species of Australopithecus in both eastern and southern Africa, potentially exhibiting different forms of bipedal locomotion. Here, we describe the previously unreported morphology of the os coxae in the 3.67 Ma Australopithecus prometheus StW 573 from Sterkfontein Member 2, comparing it with variation in ossa coxae in living humans and apes as well as other Plio-Pleistocene hominins. Statistical comparisons indicate that StW 573 and 431 resemble humans in their anteroposteriorly great iliac crest breadth compared with many other early australopiths, whereas Homo ergaster KNM WT 15000 surprisingly also has a relatively anterioposteriorly short iliac crest...

Distinguishing arteries from veins in the cerebral cortex is critical for studying hemodynamics under pathophysiological conditions, which plays an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of various vessel-related diseases. However, due to the complexity of the cerebral vascular network, it is challenging to identify arteries and veins in vivo. Here, we demonstrate an artery-vein separation method that employs a combination of multiple scanning modes of two-photon microscopy and a custom-designed stereoscopic fixation device for mice...

The human calcaneus is robust and provides a prominent heel for effective bipedal locomotion, although the adjacent talus has no muscle attachments. However, there is incomplete information about the morphological changes in these prominent bones during embryo development. We examined serial histological sections of 23 human embryos and early-term fetuses (approximately 5-10 weeks' gestational age [GA]). At a GA of 5 weeks, the precartilage talus was parallel to and on the medial side of the calcaneus, which had a prolate spheroid shape and consisted of three masses...

Recent evidence suggests that the invasive air sac system evolved at least three times independently in avemetatarsalians: in pterosaurs, sauropodomorphs and theropods. Data from sauropodomorphs showed that the pneumatic architecture in vertebrae first developed in camellate-like trabeculae in the Triassic, later in camerate systems in Jurassic neosauropods, and finally camellate tissue in Cretaceous titanosaurs. This evolutionary trajectory has support from a considerable sampling of sauropodomorph taxa. However, the evolution of pneumatic bone tissues in Theropoda is less understood...

Postmortem human subject (PMHS) studies are essential to brain injury research in motor vehicle safety. However, postmortem deterioration reduces the similarity between postmortem test results and in vivo response in material testing of brain tissue and in biomechanical testing of the whole head. This pilot study explores the effect of potential preservatives on brain tissue breakdown to identify promising preservatives that warrant further investigation. To identify preservatives with potential to slow postmortem degradation, samples from an initial PMHS were refrigerated at 10°C to qualitatively compare tissue breakdown from 58 to 152 h postmortem after storage in candidate solutions...

Opossums (marsupials of the Didelphidae family) retain a generalized masticatory apparatus and tribosphenic molars, often used as models to understand the evolution of mastication in early therian mammals. Like all marsupials, their growth goes through a stage when pups complete their development while permanently attached to the mother's teats before weaning and starting feeding on their own. Yet, while the masticatory muscles of adults are known, as is the ontogeny of the cranium and mandible, the ontogenetic changes in the masticatory muscles remain unknown...

The Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation sauropods Diplodocus (formerly "Seismosaurus") hallorum and Supersaurus vivianae are quantifiably the largest dinosaurian taxa from the formation, as well as being among the largest dinosaurs in the world. Their extreme body size (in particular body length, c. 50+ m) has fascinated the paleontological community since their discoveries and has sparked an ongoing discussion on the trends and limits of Morrison Formation sauropod body size. Although not an undeviating proxy, often the largest and skeletally most mature specimens are among the rarest (as exemplified in Triceratops)...

The nuclei are the main output structures of the cerebellum. Each and every cerebellar cortical computation reaches several areas of the brain by means of cerebellar nuclei processing and integration. Nevertheless, our knowledge of these structures is still limited compared to the cerebellar cortex. Here, we present a mouse genetic inducible fate-mapping study characterizing rhombic lip-derived glutamatergic neurons of the nuclei, the most conspicuous family of long-range cerebellar efferent neurons. Glutamatergic neurons mainly occupy dorsal and lateral territories of the lateral and interposed nuclei, as well as the entire medial nucleus...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

At the angle of the mouth, spoke-like muscle bundles converge at the "modiolus," which is believed to appear in utero. The aim of this study was to investigate the growth of the modiolus histologically. We studied frontal histological sections of the face from 12 midterm and six near-term fetuses. At midterm, a convergence of the levator anguli oris (LAOM) and depressor anguli oris (DAOM) was frequently present, and another convergence of the LAOM with the platysma (PM) or orbicularis oris (OOM) was also often evident...

In reading the published letter to the editor by Drs Venkatesh and Morris, they raise a number of points concerning educating students about developmental embryology, along with clinical (and presumably legal) considerations concerning individuals with DSDs or gender. Its publication is timely, given the recent debates in the wider medical community, and in public, following the publication of the Cass report, and the "WPATH files" (by Michael Shellenberger). While typical developmental embryology, and examples of variations, should rightly be included within the undergraduate curriculum (and has traditionally been taught pre-clinically by anatomists), establishing the extent to which diagnosis and management of DSDs and gender dysphoria should be included within modern undergraduate curricula is surely more appropriate for our specialist Clinical Colleagues to determine...

Morphological markers for brain plasticity are still lacking and their findings are challenged by the extreme variability of cortical brain surface. Trying to overcome the "correspondence problem," we applied a landmark-free method (the generalized procrustes surface analysis (GPSA)) for investigating the shape variation of cortical surface in a group of 40 healthy volunteers (i.e., the practice group) subjected to daily motor training known as Quadrato motor training (QMT). QMT is a sensorimotor walking meditation that aims at balancing body, cognition, and emotion...

Early diagnosis of post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) is critical for designing better treatments before the degradation becomes irreversible. We utilized multimodal high-resolution imaging to investigate early-stage deterioration in articular cartilage and the subchondral bone plate from a sub-critical impact to the knee joint, which initiates PTOA. The knee joints of 12 adult rabbits were mechanically impacted once on the femoral articular surface to initiate deterioration. At 2- and 14-week post-impact surgery, cartilage-bone blocks were harvested from the impact region in the animals (N = 6 each)...

Although extinct sloths exhibited a wide range of dietary habits, modes of locomotion, and occupied various niches across the Americas, modern sloths are considered quite similar in their habits. The dietary habits of living sloths can be directly observed in the wild, and understanding the mechanical behavior of their jaws during chewing through finite element analysis (FEA) provides a valuable validation tool for comparative analysis with their extinct counterparts. In this study, we used FEA to simulate the mechanical behavior of sloth mandibles under lateral mastication loads, using it as a proxy for oral processing...

Current studies on facial growth and development have been largely based on European populations. Less studied are African populations, who because of their distinct genetic makeup and environmental conditions, provide deeper insights into patterns of facial development. Patterns of facial shape development in African populations remain largely uncharacterised. Our study aimed to establish facial growth and development trajectories based on a cohort of 2874 Bantu Africans from Tanzania aged 6-18 years, with particular focus on identifying morphogenetic processes that lead to observed developmental shape changes...

Mudskippers are a group of extant ray-finned fishes with an amphibious lifestyle and serve as exemplars for understanding the evolution of amphibious capabilities in teleosts. A comprehensive anatomical profile of both the soft and hard tissues within their propulsive fins is essential for advancing our understanding of terrestrial locomotor adaptations in fish. Despite the ecological significance of mudskippers, detailed data on their musculoskeletal anatomy remains limited. In the present research, we utilized contrast-enhanced high-resolution microcomputed tomography (μCT) imaging to investigate the barred mudskipper, Periophthalmus argentilineatus...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The baubellum (os clitoridis) is a bone found in the clitoris of many female eutherian mammals and is homologous to the baculum in males. In contrast to the baculum, the baubellum has received very little attention regarding its morphological or interspecific diversity, or on hypotheses for its function. The presence of the baubellum in bears (Ursidae) has only been established and mentioned in the literature for the Ursus genus, and not for the other genera of bears. Moreover, no scaled photographs are available for baubella of this clade, and the sizes reported vary between sources...

The human brain's complex morphology is spatially constrained by numerous intrinsic and extrinsic physical interactions. Spatial constraints help to identify the source of morphological variability and can be investigated by employing anatomical network analysis. Here, a model of human craniocerebral topology is presented, based on the bony elements of the skull at birth and a previously designed model of the brain. The goal was to investigate the topological components fundamental to the craniocerebral geometric balance, to identify underlying phenotypic patterns of spatial arrangement, and to understand how these patterns might have influenced the evolution of human brain morphology...