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Projekt Druckansicht

Untersuchung der Entwicklung des niederfrequenten Hörens bei Bartenwalen mittels neuartiger Verfahren der tomographischen Bildgebung

Fachliche Zuordnung Paläontologie
Förderung Förderung von 2012 bis 2018
Projektkennung Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 231474319
 
Erstellungsjahr 2017

Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse

The complementary use of different imaging methods based on neutron and X-rays contributes to improve image contrast and to obtain additional structural information that allows the extraction of relevant anatomical features that are hardly accessible by conventional destructive methods. Due to the higher spatial resolution X-ray-based measurements obtain a more detailed digital replication of the analyzed cochlea than neutron-based measurements do. Since, in particular, the spatial resolution has been improved considerably in the last few years, latter measurement method still remains interesting for the investigation of paleopathological and geoarchaeological samples of fossil and recent origin. The high quality of the scan data and the reconstructed data sets enabled a comprehensive and detailed morphometric analysis. Results from our study confirm the influence of the morphology of the cochlea on the hearing ability of mammals, especially of whales. In addition, the inclusion of internal structures of the perioticum may be relevant to the unambiguous classification of new taxa, especially if very similar external features make the distinction more difficult. However, beam hardening effects are problematic when using polychromatic X-ray radiation. By suitable choice of X-ray filters, these can be minimized so that segmentation with a proper spatial resolution is possible. In particular, this effect can be seen in the comparison of fetal bone tissue, which has a low density with an adult bone tissue, which has a higher density. Another measurement problem is the dimensions of a whale skull. The non-invasive measurement of the cochlea requires the tomography of the entire skull. It is about an order of magnitude between the dimensions of the cochlea and the skull. So either the tomography of the entire skull will be of a low spatial resolution or a local tomography of a part of the skull with a centered cochlea can be made. The latter variant was used for the presented measurements. This enables a spatial resolution for a proper digital reproduction of the cochlear course. The reconstruction algorithms were adapted to this problem and therewith maintain the quality of the reconstruction.

Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)

 
 

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