Cribriform Plate Segmentation

Author: Amber Cooper | Major: Anthropology

From the Honors blog tales, I give you the wonderful world of primate adaptations. The picture that I decided to use for the blog is the cribriform plate, which is the concave structure just superior to the base of the nose in animals that houses the olfactory bulb in animals. The variation of the cribriform plate is the basis of what my honors thesis is about. So far, I am in the process of collecting data from each extant primate family, this includes sectioning out the cribriform plate from the rest of the skull, which is again shown in the picture. Interestingly enough, the bulk of this past semester has been utilizing a program called Geomagic, where I use something called a curvature map to figure out the margins of the cribriform plate. The curvature map is the very pretty green polka-dotted portion of the skull shown. You can tell from the bottom of the skull that the more curved the surface, the bluer the curve. The whole point of sectioning out the cribriform plate is that the larger and more complex in different primate groups is likely dependent on factors such as whether the primate is nocturnal or diurnal, its dietary pattern (i.e., frugivore/folivore/insectivore), and social behaviors that that utilize olfaction. Once I get to my analysis stage of the project is where things will get super interesting, because that’s where I’ll get to figure out how each primate family differs and how extensively the cribriform plate contributes to that variation.

My mentors were incredibly important for me this semester since I was going through some personal struggles during this semester. My mentors not only helped encourage me when times were difficult, but also created realistic goals for me to work from so I could continue my work. In the last post, I talked about my future conference attendance, and this is still future goal. By going to the conference, I can also better explain to peers how my research provides real-world applications, since I can use real examples in-person, on how much people tend to overlook their sense of smell. I can collaborate with my peers and reveal how much people have a tendency to rely on their vision to interact with the world. Therefore, this experience will enhance my thesis, because if I ever want to expand this research in the future, I would be able to connect my discoveries from the conference to my thesis and develop it more. This will continue to be a laudable goal that I will work towards as my honors thesis progresses. Even though the last semester was harder for me than normal, I still have the same passion for learning and research that I did when I last posted on my blog, and my goals for pursuing a PhD in Anthropology are still as strong as when I dreamed of them as a child.