The study of sexual differences of metacarpus of the human hand by method of geometrical morphometry

The study of the variability of the form and size of the human hand is one of the important problems of the skeletal biology. In recent years, with the development of analytical methods in the biometry is developing new trend of the analysis of biological forms, known as the geometric morphometry. The purpose of this research is the study of the variability of the form of the metacarpus of human hand by the method of the geometric morphometry. The geometric morphometry of digitized images of radiographs of the metacarpus of the right hand 27 men and 20 women with the appropriate software were held. It was found that differences in the geometric space of the distal epiphysis of II-nd and of V-nd metacarpal bones contribute most to the variability of the shapes of the metacarpus. More stable are the proximal epiphysis of II-V-nd and the distal epiphysis of the IV-nd metacarpal bones. The more stable state has the geometric space of the distal epiphysis of the III-nd metacarpal bone...