Wang Qian, Strait David S, Dechow Paul C
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Baylor College of Dentistry, Texas A & M University Health Sciences Center, Dallas, TX 75246, USA.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2006 Dec;131(4):469-85. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.20481.
Bones of the face and cranial vault meet at sutural boundaries. These sutures are of great importance for craniofacial growth. Although the effects that the sutures have on modulating craniofacial strains have been investigated, how sutural fusion influences primate craniofacial biomechanics and adaptation are less considered. Confounding this problem is the lack of any systematic data on patterns of craniofacial sutural fusion from animals of known age and sex. This study examined the status of 28 sutures in Macaca mulatta skulls from a collection of animals of known age and sex from Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. Survival analysis showed that most animals died before all sutures fused. There was high variation in the age at which individual sutures or sutural sections were fused in M. mulatta, and significant differences in the amount of sutural fusion among regions and between males and females. Intensive fusion of sutures took place between ages 5 and 15. Sutures in the facial area tended to be less fused than in the cranial vault. Between adolescence and adulthood, males tended to have more sutural fusion than females, especially in the facial area. These differences might be biomechanical adaptations during ontogeny to craniofacial sexual dimorphism. These findings enrich our understanding of variation in sutural morphology in rhesus monkeys. Comparative information across primate species is essential for understanding the biomechanics of craniofacial form throughout primate evolution.
面部骨骼与颅顶在缝合边界处相接。这些缝合线对颅面生长极为重要。尽管已经研究了缝合线对调节颅面应变的影响，但缝合线融合如何影响灵长类动物颅面生物力学和适应性却较少被考虑。使这个问题变得复杂的是，缺乏来自已知年龄和性别的动物的颅面缝合线融合模式的任何系统性数据。本研究检查了来自波多黎各圣地亚哥岛已知年龄和性别的猕猴头骨中28条缝合线的状况。生存分析表明，大多数动物在所有缝合线融合之前就死亡了。猕猴个体缝合线或缝合线部分融合的年龄存在很大差异，不同区域以及雄性和雌性之间的缝合线融合量也存在显著差异。缝合线的密集融合发生在5至15岁之间。面部区域的缝合线融合程度往往低于颅顶。在青春期到成年期之间，雄性的缝合线融合往往比雌性更多，尤其是在面部区域。这些差异可能是个体发育过程中对颅面两性异形的生物力学适应。这些发现丰富了我们对恒河猴缝合线形态变异的理解。跨灵长类物种的比较信息对于理解整个灵长类进化过程中颅面形态的生物力学至关重要。
