Main research question

Harmony’s doctoral thesis, supervised by Dr Amélie Beaudet and co-supervised by Dr Douglas Momberg, seeks to study the evolution of brain metabolism within the hominin lineage. Skeletal foramina through which cerebral blood vessels pass will be virtually measured in 3D Slicer and Avizo software following surface scanning of fossil hominin and modern human dry bone specimens.

Topics of study

Relevant equations from the literature will be applied to said measurements to estimate cerebral blood flow and thus glucose consumption rate. Inter-specific variability in these estimations will be examined, as will intra-specific variation in the case of the modern human dry bone sample. Real cerebral blood flow and glucose consumption rate data will also be collected from a sample of living humans to further examine intra-specific variation. This research comprises an investigative branch within Project CoEvol.

Contact

• Bât. B35 – 3ème étage, aile nord – Bureau 412
• harmony.hill@univ-poitiers.fr