Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7JE, United Kingdom.
Medical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Feb 1;122(4):048103. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.048103.
The newborn mammalian cranial vault consists of five flat bones that are joined together along their edges by soft fibrous tissues called sutures. Early fusion of these sutures leads to a medical condition known as craniosynostosis. The mechanobiology of normal and craniosynostotic skull growth is not well understood. In a series of previous studies, we characterized and modeled radial expansion of normal and craniosynostotic (Crouzon) mice. Here, we describe a new modeling algorithm to simulate bone formation at the sutures in normal and craniosynostotic mice. Our results demonstrate that our modeling approach is capable of predicting the observed ex vivo pattern of bone formation at the sutures in the aforementioned mice. The same approach can be used to model different calvarial reconstruction in children with craniosynostosis to assist in the management of this complex condition.
新生哺乳动物的颅顶由五块扁平骨组成，这些骨沿边缘由称为缝线的柔软纤维组织连接在一起。这些缝线的早期融合会导致一种称为颅缝早闭的医学病症。正常和颅缝早闭（颅缝早闭）颅骨生长的机械生物学尚未得到很好的理解。在之前的一系列研究中，我们对正常和颅缝早闭（Crouzon）小鼠的径向扩张进行了表征和建模。在这里，我们描述了一种新的建模算法，用于模拟正常和颅缝早闭小鼠缝线处的骨形成。我们的结果表明，我们的建模方法能够预测上述小鼠缝线处骨形成的体外观察模式。同样的方法可以用于模拟患有颅缝早闭的儿童不同的颅骨重建，以帮助管理这种复杂的情况。
