Urbanová P, Hejna P, Zátopková L, Šafr M
Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic.
Homo. 2013 Jun;64(3):190-204. doi: 10.1016/j.jchb.2013.03.005. Epub 2013 May 3.
Morphological aspects of the human hyoid bone are, like many other skeletal elements in human body, greatly affected by individual's sex, age and body proportions. Still, the known sex-dependent bimodality of a number of body size characteristics overshadows the true within-group patterns. Given the ambiguity of the causal effects of age, sex and body size upon hyoid morphology the present study puts the relationship between shape of human hyoid bone and body proportions (height and weight) under scrutiny of a morphological study. Using 211 hyoid bones and landmark-based methods of geometric morphometrics, it was shown that the size of hyoid bones correlated positively with measured body dimensions but showed no correlation if the individual's sex was controlled for. For shape variables, our results revealed that hyoid morphology is clearly related to body size as expressed in terms of the height and weight. Yet, the hyoid shape was shown to result primarily from the sex-related bimodal distribution of studied body size descriptors which, in the case of the height-dependent model, exhibited opposite trends for males and females. Apart from the global hyoid shape given by spatial arrangements of the greater horns, body size dependency was translated into size and position of the hyoid body. None of the body size characters had any impact on hyoid asymmetry. Ultimately, sexually dimorphic variation was revealed for age-dependent changes in both size and shape of hyoid bones as male hyoids tend to be more susceptible to modifications with age than female bones.
与人体许多其他骨骼元素一样，人类舌骨的形态学特征会受到个体的性别、年龄和身体比例的显著影响。然而，许多身体尺寸特征已知的性别依赖性双峰模式掩盖了群体内部的真实模式。鉴于年龄、性别和身体尺寸对舌骨形态的因果影响存在模糊性，本研究通过形态学研究来审视人类舌骨形状与身体比例（身高和体重）之间的关系。使用211块舌骨以及基于地标点的几何形态测量方法，研究表明舌骨大小与测量的身体尺寸呈正相关，但在控制个体性别后则无相关性。对于形状变量，我们的结果显示舌骨形态与以身高和体重表示的身体尺寸明显相关。然而，舌骨形状主要源于所研究身体尺寸描述符的性别相关双峰分布，在与身高相关的模型中，男性和女性呈现出相反的趋势。除了由大角的空间排列给出的整体舌骨形状外，身体尺寸依赖性还体现在舌骨体的大小和位置上。身体尺寸特征均未对舌骨不对称性产生任何影响。最终，研究揭示了舌骨大小和形状随年龄变化的性别二态性差异，因为男性舌骨往往比女性舌骨更容易随年龄发生变化。
