4(P29) Preliminary analysis of morphological correspondence between human cranial endocast and brain surface

In order to estimate brain morphology of Neanderthals based on their fossil crania, it is necessary, as a first step, to identify relationship between cranial and brain morphology based on living human subjects. In this study, we tried to quantitatively establish morphological correspondence between cranial endocast and brain surface morphology using medical imaging technique. We obtained CT and MRI scans of the head of four adult male participants. The CT and MRI images from the same subjects were registered to each other such as to maximize mutual information between the two images. Endocast and brain surfaces were then three-dimensionally reconstructed to evaluate morphological correspondence between them. Specifically, landmark coordinates were acquired on the endocast and brain, respectively, and morphological variations in cranial and brain shapes were analyzed using geometric morphometrics. Our preliminary analysis demonstrated that such morphological correspondence between cranial endocast and brain surface does actually exist, and this correspondence relationship might be exploited for estimation of brain morphology of fossil human crania.