The Study of the Human Spine and Its Evolution: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Been, Ella; Gómez‐Olivencia, Asier; Kramer, Patricia Ann

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-19349-2_1

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…We surmise that some chronic pains were not uncommon prior to dietary reliance on intensive agriculture, and in this sense, chronic nonspecific low back pain is not a 'mismatch disease' limited to post-industrialized populations. Consistent with this idea, degenerative spinal OA is fairly common in early hominin vertebral remains [16,55] and OA is a leading cause of pain in modern humans [56]. Of course, we cannot make direct inferences about early hominin pain vulnerability, and early hominins vary greatly in their morphology, locomotion, and lifespan [4,57].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of course, we cannot make direct inferences about early hominin pain vulnerability, and early hominins vary greatly in their morphology, locomotion, and lifespan [4,57]. However, the fact that spinal pathologies in particular appear to be fairly uncommon in quadrupeds including chimpanzees and gorillas [55,58] suggests that transition to orthograde posture and associated changes in compressive loading patterns made bipedal hominins more susceptible to pain from recurrent mechanical stress. Hominin musculoskeletal changes supporting bipedalism probably imposed at least some health costs, which, after millions of years of evolution, remain a significant epidemiological burden that can be exacerbated by modern conditions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Labour's pain: strenuous subsistence work, mechanical wear-and-tear and musculoskeletal pain in a non-industrialized population

Stieglitz,

Buoro,

Beheim

et al. 2023

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Musculoskeletal pain is the most debilitating human health condition. Neurophysiological pain mechanisms are highly conserved and promote somatic maintenance and learning to avoid future harm. However, some chronic pain might be more common owing to mismatches between modern lifestyles and traits that originally evolved under distinct premodern conditions. To inform assumptions about factors affecting chronic pain vulnerability prior to industrialization, we assess pain prevalence, perceived causes, and predictors among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists. Habitual subsistence work is the primary reported cause of pain throughout life for both sexes, and pain is more common with age, especially in the back, and for those with more musculoskeletal problems. Sex differences in pain are relatively weak, and we find no association between women's reproductive history and pain, contrary to the hypothesis that reproduction causes women's greater pain susceptibility. Age-standardized current pain prevalence is 1.7–8.2 times higher for Tsimane than other select populations, and Tsimane chronic pain prevalence is within the range of variation observed elsewhere. Chronic low back pain is not a ‘mismatch disease’ limited to post-industrialized populations. Hominin musculoskeletal changes supporting bipedalism probably imposed health costs, which, after millions of years of evolution, remain an epidemiological burden that may be exacerbated by modern conditions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Labour's pain: strenuous subsistence work, mechanical wear-and-tear and musculoskeletal pain in a non-industrialized population

Stieglitz,

Buoro,

Beheim

et al. 2023

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…The adoption of the erect posture and bipedal gait induced adaptations in the musculature of the back. In hominoids, the strongest back muscles, namely, the erector spinae (iliocostalis, longissimus, spinalis), together with the multifidus, are dorsally located with respect to the vertebrae and function, therefore, as extensors [95,96] (Figure 10). Their mechanical role is counterbalanced by the rectus abdominis, which is located ventrally with respect to the spine and abdomen and, therefore, has a considerable lever arm when acting as a spine flexor [97].…”

Section: A Biomechanical Perspective On Spine Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Spine: A Strong, Stable, and Flexible Structure with Biomimetics Potential

Galbusera

Bassani

2019

Biomimetics

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From its first appearance in early vertebrates, the spine evolved the function of protecting the spinal cord, avoiding excessive straining during body motion. Its stiffness and strength provided the basis for the development of the axial skeleton as the mechanical support of later animals, especially those which moved to the terrestrial environment where gravity loads are not alleviated by the buoyant force of water. In tetrapods, the functions of the spine can be summarized as follows: protecting the spinal cord; supporting the weight of the body, transmitting it to the ground through the limbs; allowing the motion of the trunk, through to its flexibility; providing robust origins and insertions to the muscles of trunk and limbs. This narrative review provides a brief perspective on the development of the spine in vertebrates, first from an evolutionary, and then from an embryological point of view. The paper describes functions and the shape of the spine throughout the whole evolution of vertebrates and vertebrate embryos, from primordial jawless fish to extant animals such as birds and humans, highlighting its fundamental features such as strength, stability, and flexibility, which gives it huge potential as a basis for bio-inspired technologies.

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“…The digital reconstruction of the human spine has already been discussed extensively in Been, Gómez‐Olivencia, and Kramer (2019). In contrast, although there are some publications on reconstructing the full ribcage of several well‐preserved fossil hominins (Bastir et al., 2020; García‐Martínez, Bastir, Gómez‐Olivencia, et al., 2020; Gómez‐Olivencia et al., 2018), they do not detail nor standardize the methodology used for sorting and placing ribs over the spine.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to make a digital reconstruction of the human ribcage

López‐Rey,

García‐Martínez,

Bastir

2024

Journal of Anatomy

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Up to now, there have been no publication standardizing the digital reconstruction of the modern human ribcage from commingled costo‐vertebral material. Consequently, we designed a validated protocol based on anatomical features observed in the literature and the CT scanned ribcages of 10 adult European individuals. After quantifying the shape of these ribcages using 3D geometric morphometrics, we split each vertebra and rib within their corresponding (semi)landmarks. Subsequently, individual bones + (semi)landmarks were imported to LhpFusionBox, commingled and 3D reconstructed. To validate the accuracy of the protocol, we first reconstructed a randomly chosen ribcage three times and then compared these reconstructions to the rest of the sample. Since these reconstructions were closer to their original counterpart than to the others, the remaining sample was reconstructed once. Next, we tested the intra‐observer error during reconstructing using the Procrustes distances among the original ribcages and the reconstructions. We observed that first each ribcage reconstruction was clustered to its original counterpart and second there was a learning curve showing an improvement in the reconstruction process over time. Subsequently, we explored general size and shape differences among the original and reconstructed ribcages through a study of centroid size and a permutation test on the Procrustes distances (10,000 permutations), respectively. Specific shape differences between both groups were further examined through a principal component analysis in shape space. None of these analyses found statistical differences between the original and reconstructed ribcages (p > 0.05). Eventually, we extracted the mean shapes of the original ribcages and the reconstructions in order to visualize potential deviations caused by the anatomical considerations of the researcher. These results demonstrate that the protocol is accurate enough to be used when reconstructing a disarticulated human ribcage.

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The Study of the Human Spine and Its Evolution: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Cited by 4 publications

References 53 publications

Labour's pain: strenuous subsistence work, mechanical wear-and-tear and musculoskeletal pain in a non-industrialized population

Labour's pain: strenuous subsistence work, mechanical wear-and-tear and musculoskeletal pain in a non-industrialized population

The Spine: A Strong, Stable, and Flexible Structure with Biomimetics Potential

How to make a digital reconstruction of the human ribcage

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