Elucidation of three-dimensional growth and development of human facial skeleton during fetal period

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K23824
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0802:Biomedical structure and function and related fields
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: Katsube Motoki 京都大学, 医学研究科, 助教 (40609583)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-08-30 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 発生学 / 解剖学 / 顔面形態形成 / 形成外科 / 顔面先天異常 / 先天異常 / 胎児学 / 形態学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The normal development process of the facial skeleton is indispensable for elucidating the pathophysiology of facial congenital anomalies, but it is not yet known. The purpose of this study is to quantify the three-dimensional morphological changes of the human facial skeleton during the fetal period and to elucidate the normal developmental patterns.
Recentry, the development of imaging equipment such as CT and MRI has made it possible to perform accurate morphological analysis using a large number of extremely valuable human fetal specimens. Then, by quantitative analysis based on those image data, we created a standard growth model along the time axis and clarified the relationship with the development of the masticatory muscles. These morphological changes were demonstrated, and the pathophysiology of the fetal akinesia deformation sequence was shown.

Free Research Field

形成外科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ヒト胎児期における顔面骨格の成長発育の解明は先天異常疾患の病態生理解明、胎児超音波診断などにおいても必要不可欠でありその重要性は認知されてきました。しかし、ヒト胚子、胎児標本は非常に貴重であるため、国内、国外ともに研究報告は限られているのが現状です。特に顔面骨格については形態が複雑であるため、その3次元解析の報告は更に限られます。今回の研究成果は、今後の顔面形態の発生研究において新しい方法を提供するだけでなく、その解析結果自体も様々な研究の基礎になり得るため、学術的意義は高いと考えています。