García-Martínez Daniel, López-Rey José M, Gil Orosia García, Cambra-Moo Óscar, Notario Belén, Torres-Sánchez Isabel, García-Río Francisco, Bastir Markus, Martín Armando González
Physical Anthropology Unit, Department of Biodiversity, Ecology, and Evolution, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca, 3, 09002 Burgos, España.
Anthropol Anz. 2023 Apr 25. doi: 10.1127/anthranz/2023/1617.
Rib internal anatomy and its cross-sectional morphology inform about important biomechanical or even evolutionary aspects. Classic histological studies require destructive techniques that are reprehensible depending on the case (e.g., fossils). In the last years, non-destructive CT-based methods are contributing to complementing previous knowledge without damaging the bone. Even though these methods have been proved to be useful to understand adult variation, we do not know whether these methods are useful to cover ontogenetic variation. This work compares classical histological methods with medical- and micro-CT to quantify the amount of mineral area at the rib midshaft (% Min. Ar.), a proxy for bone density. We compared cross-sections from an ontogenetic sample of 14 human first ribs ranging from perinates to adults using a) classical histology, b) HD (9-17 microns) and SD micro-CT (90 microns), and c) standard medical-CT (0.66 mm). We found that all the CT-based methods provide a larger % Min. Ar. compared to the histological techniques, but the HD micro-CT resolution is the only capable of producing results comparable to classical histology (p > 0.01), with the SD micro-CT and the medical-CT producing statistically larger results compared to classical histology (p < 0.01). In addition, it is important to state that the resolution of a standard medical-CT is not high enough to differentiate between mineral and non-mineral areas of the cross-sections for perinates and infants. These results could have important implications to avoid (when necessary) destructive techniques that are not appropriate in the case of highly valuable specimens such as fossils.
肋骨的内部解剖结构及其横截面形态揭示了重要的生物力学甚至进化方面的信息。经典的组织学研究需要采用具有破坏性的技术，而根据具体情况（如化石）来看，这些技术是应受谴责的。在过去几年中，基于计算机断层扫描（CT）的非破坏性方法有助于补充先前的知识，同时又不会对骨骼造成损害。尽管这些方法已被证明有助于理解成人的变异情况，但我们尚不清楚这些方法是否有助于涵盖个体发育过程中的变异。这项研究将经典组织学方法与医学CT和显微CT进行比较，以量化肋骨中段的矿物质面积百分比（% Min. Ar.），这是骨密度的一个替代指标。我们使用以下方法比较了14根人类第一肋骨从围产期到成人的个体发育样本的横截面：a）经典组织学方法，b）高分辨率（9 - 17微米）和低分辨率显微CT（90微米），以及c）标准医学CT（0.66毫米）。我们发现，与组织学技术相比，所有基于CT的方法都能提供更大的% Min. Ar.，但高分辨率显微CT的分辨率是唯一能够产生与经典组织学相当结果的方法（p > 0.01），而低分辨率显微CT和医学CT产生的结果与经典组织学相比在统计学上更大（p < 0.01）。此外，必须指出的是，标准医学CT的分辨率不足以区分围产期和婴儿横截面中的矿物质和非矿物质区域。这些结果可能具有重要意义，以便在必要时避免对诸如化石等极有价值标本不适用的破坏性技术。
