| Publications [#44400] of Ann C. Zumwalt
search PubMed.Journal Articles
- Zumwalt, AC. "A new method for quantifying the complexity of muscle attachment sites." The Anatomical Record, Part B: The New Anatomist 286B (September, 2005): 21-28. [ABSTRACT]
(last updated on 2005/12/30)
Abstract: Muscle attachment site morphology may have
valuable use for reconstructing activity
patterns in individuals from historic
populations or extinct species. The skeletal
locations where muscles and tendons attach
are morphologically very complex, and
variations in this morphology may reflect
stresses experienced by these attachment
sites as a result of muscular contractions.
However, existing methods for assessing
attachment site complexity are qualitative
and subjective. This paper describes a new
method for quantifying attachment site
complexity in which attachment sites are
scanned with a 3D laser scanner and the
morphological complexities of their surfaces
are quantified using fractal analysis. The
method described here documents the
complexity at specific transects along six
limb attachment sites in adult female sheep
(Ovis aries), and variations in complexity
within attachment sites are explored.
Overall trends indicate that most of the
attachment sites examined here are more
complex at their peripheries than at their
centers, indicating that these sites
experience more varied loads at the
peripheries of the tendon attachments.
Exceptions to this trend are noted and all
functional implications are discussed. This
method provides the first opportunity to
explore variations in morphological
complexity within attachment sites. Assuming
a relationship between tensile strains and
bony morphology exists, this method provides
a new tool to explore the strain environments
of muscle attachment sites.
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