Prenatal sex hormones, digit ratio, and face shape in adult males. SM Weinberg, TE Parsons, ZD Raffensperger.

Date: February 2015. Source: Orthodontics & Craniofacial Research, 18(1):21-6. Objectives: Several reports have demonstrated a relationship between second to fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) and facial shape, suggesting that prenatal sex hormones play a role in the development of the craniofacial complex. Using 3D surface imaging and geometric morphometrics, we test the hypothesis that decreased digit…

Variation and signatures of selection on the human face. J Guo, J Tan, Y Yang, H Zhou, S Hu, A Hashan, N Bahaxar, S Xu, TD Weaver, L Jin, M Stoneking, K Tang.

Date: October 2014 Source: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 75, pp 143–152. Abstract: There has been much debate about why humans throughout the world differ in facial form. Previous studies of human skull morphology found levels of among-population differentiation that were comparable to those of neutral genetic markers, suggesting that genetic drift (neutral processes) played…

Biomedical visual data analysis to build an intelligent diagnostic decision support system in medical genetics. K Kuru, M Niranjan, Y Tunca, E Osvank, T Azim.

Date: October 2014. Source: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 62(2):105-18. Background: In general, medical geneticists aim to pre-diagnose underlying syndromes based on facial features before performing cytological or molecular analyses where a genotype–phenotype interrelation is possible. However, determining correct genotype–phenotype interrelationships among many syndromes is tedious and labor-intensive, especially for extremely rare syndromes. Thus, a computer-aided…

Perceptual differences between men and women: A 3D facial morphometric perspective. S Gilani, A Mian.

Date: August 2014 Source: Int. Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR) 2014, Stockholm, Sweden. © IEEE. pp 2413 – 2418. Abstract: Understanding the features employed by the human visual system in gender classification is considered a critical step towards improving machine based gender classification systems. We propose the use of 3D Euclidean and geodesic distances between…

Exploratory genotype–phenotype correlations of facial form and asymmetry in unaffected relatives of children with non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate. SF Miller, SM Weinberg, NL Nidey, DK Defay, ML Marazita, GL Wehby, LM Moreno Uribe.

Date: June 2014 Source: Journal of Anatomy, Volume 224, Issue 6, pp 688-709. Abstract: Family relatives of children with nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P) who presumably carry a genetic risk yet do not manifest overt oral clefts, often present with distinct facial morphology of unknown genetic etiology. This study investigates distinct…

Modeling 3D Facial Shape from DNA. P Claes, DK Liberton, K Daniels, KM Rosana, EE Quillen, LN Pearson, B McEvoy, M Bauchet, AA Zaidi, W Yao, H Tang, GS Barsh, DM Absher, MD Shriver.

Date: March 2014 Source: PLOS Genetics. Abstract: Human facial diversity is substantial, complex, and largely scientifically unexplained. We used spatially dense quasi-landmarks to measure face shape in population samples with mixed West African and European ancestry from three locations (United States, Brazil, and Cape Verde). Using bootstrapped response-based imputation modeling (BRIM), we uncover the relationships…

Digital imaging analysis to assess scar phenotype. BJ Smith, N Nidey, SF Miller, LMM Uribe, CL Baum, GS Hamilton, GL Wehby, M Dunnwald.

Date: March-April 2014. Source: Wound Repair and Regeneration, Volume 22, Issue 2, pages 228–238. Abstract: In order to understand the link between the genetic background of patients and wound clinical outcomes, it is critical to have a reliable method to assess the phenotypic characteristics of healed wounds. In this study, we present a novel imaging…

The cluster assessment of facial attractiveness using fuzzy neural network classifier based on 3D Moiré features. WC Chiang, HH Lin, CS Huang, LJ Lo, SY Wan.

Date: March 2014. Source: Pattern Recognition. Volume 47, Issue 3, pp 1249–1260. Abstract: Facial attractiveness has long been argued upon varied emphases by philosophers, artists, psychologists and biologists. A number of studies empirically investigated how facial attractiveness was influenced by 2D facial characteristics, such as symmetry, averageness and golden ratio. However, few implementations of facial…

Detecting Genetic Association of Common Human Facial Morphological Variation Using High Density 3D Image Registration. S Peng, J Tan, S Hu, H Zhou, J Guo, L Jin, K Tang.

Date: December 2013. Source: PLoS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science. Abstract: Human facial morphology is a combination of many complex traits. Little is known about the genetic basis of common facial morphological variation. Existing association studies have largely used simple landmark-distances as surrogates for the complex morphological phenotypes of the face. However, this can…

BBC: Defining the most 'normal' shape of a human skull.

Date: 22 November 2013 Source: BBC News Article: Defining the most ‘normal’ shape of a human skull Reconstructive surgery for people born with a misshapen skull is one of medicine’s most complicated challenges. Part of the problem for surgeons is defining what a normal head actually looks like.  A team of Liverpool-based surgeons, and artists,…