Covariation patterns and respiratory simulation in modern human and Neanderthal noses

DE AZEVEDO, S.; CINTAS, C; GONZALEZ, M; RAMALLO, V; QUINTO-SÁNCHEZ M; FEDERICO MARQUEZ; HUNEMEIER, T; PASCHETTA CAROLINA,; RUDERMAN, A; NAVARRO, P.; PAZOS, B.A.; CAIO C. SILVA DE CERQUEIRA; VELAN, O; RAMÍREZ ROZZI, FERNANDO; CALVO, N; CASTRO, H.G.; PAZ, R.R.; GONZÁLEZ JOSÉ, ROLANDO

Austin

Congreso; 87th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists; 2018

American Association of Physical Anthropologists

Covariation patterns and respiratory simulation in modern human and Neanderthal nosesSOLEDAD DE AZEVEDO1, CELIA CINTAS1, MARINA GONZALEZ1, VIRGINIA RAMALLO1, MIRSHA QUINTO-SANCHEZ1,2, FEDERICO MARQUEZ3, TABITA HUNEMEIER4, CAROLINA PASCHETTA1, ANAHI RUDERMAN1, PABLO NAVARRO1, BRUNO PAZOS1, CAIO SILVA DE CERQUEIRA5, OSVALDO VELAN6, FERNANDO RAMIREZ-ROZZI7, NESTOR CALVO8, HUGO CASTRO11,9, RODRIGO PAZ10,11 and ROLANDO GONZALEZ-JOSE11Instituto Patagónico de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Centro Nacional Patagónico ? CONICET, 2Ciencia forense, Facultad de Medicina,, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 3Instituto de Biología de Organismos Marinos, Centro Nacional Patagónico ? CONICET, 4Departamento de Genética e Biologia Evolutiva, University of São Paulo, 5Superintendência da Polícia Técnico-Científica do Estado de São Paulo, Equipe de Perícias Criminalísticas de Ourinhos, 6Departamento Académico de Ciências Morfológicas, Hospital Italiano, 7UMR 5288 AMIS, CNRS, 8Department of Computing, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 9Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica, Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, 10Livermore Software Technology Corporation, LSTC, 11Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, CONICETIt is likely that a proper respiratory performance on cold and dry climates was an adaptive pre-requisite to the human settlement of Eurasian landscapes during the last Glacial Maximum. Research on covariation patterns among different anatomical parts of the nasal tract is of key importance to simulate the respiratory performance under several conditions. Data on covariation among soft versus hard tissues, or vestibular versus nasopharyngeal structures, for instance, is necessary to obtain a proper in silico reconstruction of the internal nasal tract. Here we present an extensive covariation analysis of nasal tracts including human and non-human primates as well as hard and soft tissues obtained via Computed Tomography. Furthermore, we used warping techniques to reconstruct three complete nasal tracts corresponding to two modern human populations evolved on temperate (southern European) and cold-dry (eastern Asian) climates, and a generic Neanderthal nose. Reconstructed noses including the mucosa surface were submitted to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in order to simulate respiratory regimes and climatic conditions. Simulations revealed that across-individuals differences in fluid residence time significantly affect nasal humidification and warming dynamics. Under cold/dry climatic regimes, the eastern Asian model achieved the most rapid conditioning at the vestibular region, followed with slightly less rapid conditioning by the Neanderthal model. In contrast, the southern European model reached a physiologically satisfactory conditioning less rapidly, around the medium-posterior nasal tract. These CFD results suggest that proper air conditioning is attained in some human groups and Neanderthal nasal tracts despite significant among-taxa craniofacial differences.