{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,11]],"date-time":"2026-09-11T09:21:08Z","timestamp":1789118468705,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":42,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"18","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,11]],"date-time":"2026-09-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789084800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Grant Agency of Charles University","award":["124"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["124"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Biology"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bone radiodensity is often reduced to global Hounsfield Unit (HU) summaries, although its spatial distribution may contain biologically relevant information. This study introduced a template-based framework for spatial radiodensity mapping of the adult human hyoid and tested whether spatial descriptors capture age- and sex-related variation better than whole-bone HU measures. Clinical head-and-neck CT scans from 300 adults, including 180 females and 120 males, were analyzed. Hyoids were segmented, normalized into a common anatomical template, and divided into 1500 supervoxels for spatial analysis. Scalar HU summaries were compared with PCA-based spatial descriptors, and regional effects were assessed using supervoxel-wise models with false-discovery-rate correction. The registered radiodensity maps showed spatial coherence, with neighboring supervoxels displaying more similar profiles than distant ones. In this cohort, spatial descriptors outperformed mean HU for age prediction, although performance remained limited (R2 = 0.255). Sex classification was moderate (ROC AUC = 0.810; balanced accuracy = 0.725). After the spatial features were adjusted for native volume, sex-classification AUC fell to 0.671, and none of the 51 unadjusted regional sex associations survived volume adjustment. Age-related associations involved the hyoid body, the body\u2013greater horn transition, and the proximal-to-mid greater horns. These findings demonstrate spatial coherence in the registered maps but show that the sex-related pattern is strongly size-dependent.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/biology15181602","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,11]],"date-time":"2026-09-11T08:17:42Z","timestamp":1789114662000},"page":"1602","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Beyond Mean HU: Spatial Radiodensity Mapping of the Human Hyoid as a Baseline for Morphological and Biomechanical Investigation"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"15","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2252-6719","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alexander","family":"Mor\u00e1vek","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Kralove, Charles University, 50003 Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"formal-analysis","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"visualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"project-administration","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"funding-acquisition","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3472-3680","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Katar\u00edna","family":"Martinkov\u00e1","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Histology and Embryology, 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, 10000 Prague, Czech Republic"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8700-0163","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Petr","family":"Heny\u0161","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of New Technologies and Applied Informatics, Faculty of Mechatronics, Informatics and Interdisciplinary Studies, Technical University of Liberec, 46117 Liberec, Czech Republic"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"funding-acquisition","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Jana","family":"Velem\u00ednsk\u00e1","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Science, Charles University, 12800 Prague, Czech Republic"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"formal-analysis","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8230-9383","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Niels","family":"Hammer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Macroscopic and Clinical Anatomy, Gottfried Schatz Research Center, Medical University Graz, 8036 Graz, Austria"},{"name":"Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, University of Leipzig, 04109 Leipzig, Germany"},{"name":"Division of Biomechatronics, Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology (IWU), 09126 Chemnitz, Germany"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4922-1037","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Michal","family":"Kucha\u0159","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Kralove, Charles University, 50003 Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"resources","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"visualization","vocabulary":"credit"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"455","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.bioeng.8.061505.095721","article-title":"Biomechanical and Molecular Regulation of Bone Remodeling","volume":"8","author":"Robling","year":"2006","journal-title":"Annu. 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