| 研究実績の概要 |
Based on observations of human development, the shape of craniofacial structures drastically changes between the embryonic and the early fetal periods; therefore, this is considered as the most important period to elucidate the pathogenesis of congenital craniofacial anomalies. Recent developments in medical imaging modalities, e.g., magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and/or computed tomography (CT), allowed us to study these small specimens in detail. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the morphogenesis of craniofacial structures in humans using imaging data. We applied landmark-based geometric morphometrics (GM) to analyze the shape change along with growth. In GM, the landmark coordinates of the shape are used as the variables without dividing the shape. Hence, the landmark configurations are preserved through this analysis, and the outcomes are represented as a shift of landmark coordinates. Visualization of shape change is the major advantage of geometric morphometrics.
In 2017, we applied linear approximation for the growth of the facial skeleton during late embryonic and early fetal periods and constructed a spatio-temporal statistical model correspondingly. Evaluating the tendency of growth patterns and showing the difference of the growth speed were effective. However, our results showed a non-linear trajectory of the development of the facial skeleton. In future, we would like to apply non-linear regression for the development of the facial skeleton and make a more precise spatio-temporal statistical model of the facial skeleton of the human fetus.
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