Our project Morpho Twin (Biomechanical digital twins for the exploration of human and non-human bipedal locomotion. Normality and evolution) was funded as part of the CNRS call for projects 2024 "Digital twins: new frontiers and future developments".
Context:
Each individual is unique, in terms of both anatomy and functional potential. Yet understanding and treating movement is still based on the strong assumption of an anatomical norm. In the field of orthopaedics, the implementation of orthopaedic treatments, the assessment of motor dysfunctions and the creation of new medical devices and procedures are all based on a very partial understanding of the morphological variability that exists in humans today. This partial consideration of anatomical variability leads to a simplified understanding of locomotor function, which is a barrier to the implementation of personalised orthopaedic treatments. This observation can be transposed to more fundamental areas: the study of the origins of human bipedalism and the evolution of locomotor function within primates is based on the description of idealised individuals representative of species, whether fossil or modern, which limits our understanding of the complexity of human evolution, even though fossils invite us to explore it. In this context, the arrival of technologies such as the automated generation of digital musculoskeletal twins by segmentation, landmarking and biomechanical simulation of movement, opens up major applied and fundamental prospects. This is what is addressed by the Morpho Twin project. With these technologies based on artificial intelligence, privileged access to large volumes of data and computing capacity (e.g. via the Jean Zay supercomputer), Morpho Twin will offer a new anatomical and functional description. As an interdisciplinary project, Morpho Twin offers an ideal conceptual and academic framework for preparing the redefinition of knowledge about the bony and functional anatomy of the lower limbs of humans and non-human primates, both present and fossil.
Morpho Twin brings together the complementary expertise of three CNRS research labs:
- TIMC Laboratory in Grenoble (design of dynamic digital twins for surgery),
- UMR Histoire Naturelle de l'Homme Préhistorique from Paris (primate anatomy and associated functions),
- Pprime Institute from Poitiers (experimental evaluation).
Objectives of the project:
The first objective is to set up two cohorts of biomechanical digital twins of the lower limbs :
- 1,000 humans representative in terms of age, gender and origin,
- 20 to 40 non-human primates, including species relevant to the palaeoanthropological questions, mainly baboons, macaques and chimpanzees.
The second objective is to set up the evaluation and validation of digital twins by dynamic in vitro experimentation.
The final objective is to generate digital twins of fossil species based on anatomical morphing of the various validated functional anatomies of the species in our project (human and non-human) in order to contribute to evolutionary hypotheses. Within the framework of this project, the focus will be on two contemporary fossil species best represented to date in the fossil corpus, Australopithecus afarensis (3-3.8 Ma) exploiting in particular the skeletal remains of Lucy and Australopithecus prometheus (3.65 Ma) for which imaging data have been acquired.