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In the development of vertebrate animals, the functional matrix hypothesis is a phenomenological description of bone growth. It proposes that "the origin, development and maintenance of all skeletal units are secondary, compensatory and mechanically obligatory responses to temporally and operationally prior demands of related functional matrices."
The fundamental basis for this hypothesis, laid out by
Dr. Melvin Moss, 83, Theorist on How Bones of Face Grow, Is Dead
June 29, 2006
In the development of vertebrate animals, the functional matrix hypothesis is a phenomenological description of bone growth. It proposes that "the origin, development and maintenance of all skeletal units are secondary, compensatory and mechanically obligatory responses to temporally and operationally prior demands of related functional matrices."
The fundamental basis for this hypothesis, laid out by Columbia
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...
anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...
professor Melvin Moss
Melvin Lionel Moss (1923 – June 26, 2006) was an American dentist known for creating the functional matrix hypothesis for growth and development. He was an anatomist and former dean of Columbia University College of Dental Medicine.
Career
Moss ...
is that bones do not ''grow'' but ''are grown'', thus stressing the ontogenetic
Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the s ...
primacy of function over form. This is in contrast to the current conventional scientific wisdom that genetic, rather than epigenetic
In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are " ...
(non-genetic) factors, control such growth.
The theory was introduced as a chapter in a dental textbook in 1962.''New York Times'Dr. Melvin Moss, 83, Theorist on How Bones of Face Grow, Is Dead
June 29, 2006
See also
*Wolff's law
Wolff's law, developed by the German anatomist and surgeon Julius Wolff (1836–1902) in the 19th century, states that bone in a healthy animal will adapt to the loads under which it is placed. If loading on a particular bone increases, the bon ...
* Theories of Craniofacial Growth
The development of craniofacial growth is a complicated phenomenon that has been the subject of much research for past 70 years. From the first theory in 1940s, many different ideas pertaining to how a face develops has intrigued the minds of rese ...
References
{{Reflist Developmental biology