ByGeorge!

December 2007

$2.5 Million National Science Foundation Grant to Fund Study of Hominid Facial Skeleton


 

 

 

 

 

 

GW’s Brian Richmond is creating computer models of skeletons with the help of a new National Science Foundation grant.

By Julia Parmley

A new multimillion-dollar National Science Foundation grant will enable researchers to advance the understanding of skull structure and diet in human evolution.

Under the five-year, $2.5 million grant, Associate Professor of Anthropology Brian Richmond and Professor of Anthropology Peter Lucas, both of GW’s Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, are joining with researchers from nine other universities across the globe to learn about human evolution by examining an everyday action essential to human life—chewing. Using data collected from primates, fossils, and humans, the team will examine the relationship between diet and the fossil human species (Australopithecus africanus and others) and living primates’ ability to adapt to withstand the forces imposed by eating different types of food.

Richmond says it took three years for the team’s grant to be accepted, as the NSF-HOMINID initiative is one of the most competitive in biological anthropology. He explains the project, “Integrative Analysis of Hominid Feeding Biomechanics,” is interdisciplinary with team members including engineers, dentists, anatomists, and anthropologists.

“The project will examine the functional and evolutionary relationships between diet and craniofacial shape and will gain insights into the functional anatomy, diet, ecology, and behavior of the earliest human ancestors,” says Richmond.

His part of the research involves Finite Element Analysis (FEA), in which he models stress and strains in the primate facial skeleton using computer models built from CT scans and measurements of bones and muscles.

“This work will help us test hypotheses about how the face and skull are strained during biting and chewing, how variation in biomechanical factors, such as bone mechanical properties and muscle forces, influence stresses, and how specific aspects of bone structure influence stress distributions,” says Richmond. “When we piece that all together, we can get a more complete picture of the evolution of the human diet.”

Richmond explains that when food is scarce, such as during the annual dry season, some primates have to eat foods not part of their normal diet, such as hard or tough seeds, roots, and nuts, which require a facial skeleton capable of biting and chewing these difficult foods. Richmond, Lucas, hominid paleobiology doctoral student Janine Chalk, and team members measure the different properties of the foods, then make computer models that can both simulate the food being eaten and determine how well the facial skeleton is able to withstand the resulting stresses. To make a computer model, Richmond says the team has to use CT scans of fossils and digitally fill in any missing bones. Team members at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University measure the electrical signals of muscles on living primates to determine when different chewing muscles are active and how strongly they are recruited while chewing and send Richmond the information so he can properly construct a chewing simulation on the computer.

“If we can successfully model chewing stresses in primates, then we have a powerful approach for examining how chewing worked in our extinct ancestors,” says Richmond. “So far, it’s been working really well.”

Lucas is working with Brian Lawn, a research fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., and GW postdoctoral scientist Paul Constantino, to develop a grant proposal that will support research on food material properties and how they shape the structure, size, and material properties of teeth. Lucas says this research will provide analytical solutions as well as develop possible patterns that will contribute to Richmond’s FEA work.

“The grant is great for GW,” says Richmond. “It’s incredibly competitive, and for GW to be a key part of this grant really enhances the University’s visibility as a highly respected research institution.”

 


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