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'Kováčová V, Urbanová P, 2021: A novel semi-automatic measurement of the semicircular canals of the human bony labyrinth. Anthropologie (Brno) 59, 1: 23-34'. |
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| Abstract | | The bony labyrinth is an inner ear structure located inside the pyramid of the temporal bone. In skeletal
or skeletonized human remains, the region exhibits a remarkably high resistance against a variety of taphonomic
factors. A substantial amount of work has been carried out in many scientific domains assessing morphological
variations of the bony labyrinth. However, the results of these studies are inconsistent with each other, so researchers
remain unable to definitively confirm or reject size and shape dependencies of the bony labyrinth on factors such sex
or age. Inadequate methodology and the invasiveness of existing approaches are frequently cited as reasons for these
ambiguous results. This paper proposes a new semiautomatic PC-aided approach for quantifying the semicircular
canals of the bony labyrinth using CT-generated three-dimensional digital models. A new measurement protocol was
established on a sample of 163 bony labyrinths using a step-wise elimination procedure and semi-automatic computerassisted
tools. The procedure finally selected as most effective included 39 measurements, which were employed to
explore age, sex or side-to-side differences in the shape and size of the semicircular canals. The results exhibit very few
sex-related and body-side-specific differences. However, statistically significant differences were observed between subadults
and adults, particularly in the canal lumens of the lateral and posterior semicircular canals, where larger values
were detected for the adults. This paper presents a novel innovative approach for quantifying the semicircular canals
of the bony labyrinth, with the aim of regularizing the methodological pool in this line of research. | | | | Keywords | | Human bony labyrinth – CT imaging – 3D digital models – Morphological variation | | | | DOI | | https://doi.org/10.26720/anthro.20.05.11.1 | | |
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