Muñoz-Guarinos Julia, Rodríguez Laura, Carretero José Miguel, García-González Rebeca
Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Universidad de Burgos, Edificio I+D+i/CIBA, Burgos, Spain.
Departamento de Biodiversidad y Gestión Ambiental, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales, Universidad de León, Spain.
Anat Rec (Hoboken). 2025 Aug;308(8):2212-2233. doi: 10.1002/ar.25618. Epub 2024 Dec 27.
This research delves deeper into previous works on femoral cross-sectional properties during ontogeny by focusing for the first time on the human femoral midneck. The ontogenetic pattern of cross-sectional properties at femoral midneck is established and compared with those at three different femoral locations: the proximal femur, the midshaft, and the distal femur. The study sample includes 99 femora (70 non-adults and 29 adults) belonging to archaeological specimens. Cross-sectional properties were extracted from computed tomographic scans and analyzed with the MomentMacro plugin of ImageJ. Ontogenetic trends of these variables were assessed using locally estimated scatterplot smoothing and segmented regressions, along with Wilcoxon post hoc tests for all possible age group pairings. Our results show that the femoral midneck exhibits a unique growth pattern. Area variables showed rapid growth until adolescence, followed by a more gradual increase leading into adulthood. Nonetheless, the relative cortical area does not demonstrate any significant drops or rise during growth. The morphology of the midneck section of the femur remains stable during ontogeny, with early adolescence and the onset of adulthood marking two periods of significant change. In contrast to the femoral diaphysis, the acquisition of a mature bipedal gait does not appear to constitute a period of significant morphological change at the femoral midneck cross section.
本研究首次聚焦于人类股骨中颈，深入探究了以往关于个体发育过程中股骨横截面特性的研究。建立了股骨中颈横截面特性的个体发育模式，并将其与股骨三个不同位置（股骨近端、股骨干和股骨远端）的模式进行比较。研究样本包括99根股骨（70例非成年人和29例成年人），均为考古标本。从计算机断层扫描中提取横截面特性，并使用ImageJ的MomentMacro插件进行分析。使用局部估计散点图平滑和分段回归评估这些变量的个体发育趋势，并对所有可能的年龄组配对进行Wilcoxon事后检验。我们的结果表明，股骨中颈呈现出独特的生长模式。面积变量在青春期前快速增长，随后进入成年期时增长较为平缓。尽管如此，相对皮质面积在生长过程中并未出现任何显著下降或上升。股骨中颈段的形态在个体发育过程中保持稳定，青春期早期和成年期开始是两个显著变化的时期。与股骨干不同，成熟双足步态的形成似乎并未在股骨中颈横截面构成显著形态变化的时期。
