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Familial resemblance of facial measurements in Florianópolis, South-Brazil

Isabella Cabral-Alexandre; Chandal Meirelles-Nasser

Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Campus Universitário - Trindade, 88041-900 Florianópolis, SC, Brasil. Send correspondence to I.C.-A.

ABSTRACT

With the aim of evaluating facial similarity within families, seven face measurements were taken from 146 young adults (17.51 + 0.90 years old) attending the last year of high school in Florianópolis, Brazil. The analysis included 80 families of these youngsters. The following measurements of odontological relevance were taken: bizygomatic and bigonial diameters, mandible depth, tragion-nasion and tragion-prosthion diameters, morphological face height and chin height, most of them following Martin (apud Knussmann, Anthropologie-Handbuch der Vergleichender Biologie des Menschen. Band I. 1. Toil., 245-248, 1988). All of these measurements were significantly larger for male probands, the same being true for fathers when compared to mothers. The calculated index of prognathism showed greater values for female students.
Correlation analysis of the parents measurements in relation to those of the youngsters showed significant values only for bizygomatic, bigonial and tragion-prosthion diameters. Between spouses as well as between sibs the only significant correlation was for tragion-prosthion diameter. The values of heritability estimated from midparent-offspring regression were: 0.65; 0.91 and 0.85, respectively for bizygomatic, bigonial and tragion-prosthion diameters.

Keywords: familial resemblance; facial; Florianópolis; South-Brazil.

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