title: Morphometrics, 3D Imaging, and Craniofacial Development.
abstract: Recent studies have shown how volumetric imaging and morphometrics can add significantly to our understanding of morphogenesis, the developmental basis for variation, and the etiology of structural birth defects. On the other hand, the complex questions and diverse imaging data in developmental biology present morphometrics with more complex challenges than applications in virtually any other field. Meeting these challenges is necessary in order to understand the mechanistic basis for variation in complex morphologies. This chapter reviews the methods and theory that enable the application of modern landmark-based morphometrics to developmental biology and craniofacial development, in particular. We discuss the theoretical foundations of morphometrics as applied to development and review the basic approaches to the quantification of morphology. Focusing on geometric morphometrics, we discuss the principal statistical methods for quantifying and comparing morphological variation and covariation structure within and among groups. Finally, we discuss the future directions for morphometrics in developmental biology that will be required for approaches that enable quantitative integration across the genotype-phenotype map.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, and McCaig Bone and Joint Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: bhallgri@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Benedikt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hallgrimsson
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, and McCaig Bone and Joint Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Percival
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, and McCaig Bone and Joint Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Green
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, San Francisco General Hospital, Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
authors.forename: Nathan M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Young
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Washington
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Mio
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, San Francisco General Hospital, Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Marcucio
mesh_terms: D000717:Anatomy, Comparative / Q000379:methods; D000818:Animals; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000196:embryology*; D019465:Craniofacial Abnormalities / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000196:embryology / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D009024:Morphogenesis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
keywords: Craniofacial; Imaging; MicroCT; Morphogenesis; Morphometrics; Mouse; Optical Projection Tomography; Phenomics