The Bañolas human mandible revisited (Gerona, Spain)

La mandíbula de Bañolas, descubierta en 1887 en Bañolas (Gerona, España), es un fósil humano sobre cuya asignación taxonómica no hay aún consenso. En diferentes estudios ha sido incluida dentro de Homo neanderthalensis {King, 1864} (Hernández-Pacheco & Obermaier, 1915; Sánchez, 1993), dentro de los ante-neandertales (de Lumley, 1971-72) y dentro de los ante-würmienses (Roth & Simon, 1993). Recientemente, Daura y colaboradores (Daura et al., 2005), en su artículo sobre la mandíbula fósil de la Cova del Gegant, sugieren que la mandíbula de Bañolas no presenta caracteres neandertales y que, dada su cronología, podría haber pertenecido a un Homo sapiens {Linneo, 1758}. Este estudio trata de arrojar luz sobre la cuestión de la asignación taxonómica de la mandíbula de Bañolas. Para ello se han utilizado caracteres morfológicos discretos que permiten discriminar entre las especies H. heidelbergensis {Schoetensack, 1908}, H. neanderthalensis y H. sapiens. La conclusión del trabajo es que los estados de los caracteres que presenta la mandíbula de Bañolas son, en su mayor parte, más frecuentes en H. sapiens que en las otras dos especies tenidas en cuenta.Since the discovery of a fossil human mandible in 1887 near the city of Bañolas (Gerona, Spain), there has been considerable disagreement among scholars as to its taxonomic allocation. In different studies the specimen has been included within Homo neanderthalensis {King, 1864} (Hernández-Pacheco & Obermaier, 1915; Sánchez, 1993), ante-Neandertals (de Lumley, 1971-72) or an ante-würmian (Roth & Simon, 1993) species. More recently, the Bañolas mandible has been argued to lack derived Neandertal traits (Daura et al., 2005). Although the mandible was found in a quarry of travertine, its exact location is unknown. Some patches of travertine adhered to the specimen have provided a geochronological age range between 17,6 to 110 kyr (Berger & Libby, 1966¸ Yokoyama et al., 1987; Julià & Bischoff, 1991; Grün et al., 2006). The only direct dating of the mandible yielded an age of 66 ± 7 kyr B.P. (Grün et al., 2006). After a recent examination of the original specimen, a number of morphological traits of this mandible has been described and compared with information from the literature regarding H. heidelbergensis {Schoetensack, 1908}, H. neanderthalensis and both fossil and extant H. sapiens {Linneo, 1758} mandibles. These characters have been considered to be of taxonomical significance to discriminate between these three species (see below for references). Despite the fragmentary condition of the Bañolas mandible, a considerable number of morphological traits can be evaluated: presence/absence of the mental trigone (Schwartz & Tattersall , 2000), shape of the anterior basal corpus (Quam & Smith, 1998), position of the digastric fossa (de Lumley, 1973), number, size and location of the mental foramen (Trinkaus, 1993), presence/absence of the retromolar space and inclination of the retromolar triangle (Franciscus & Trinkaus, 1995; Rosas, 2001), shape of the mandibular foramen (Smith, 1978), size and shape of the medial pterygoid tubercle (Antón, 1996), relative position between the condyle and the ascending ramus plane (Rosas, 2001; Nicholson & Harvati, 2006; Trinkaus, 2006), dimensions of the submental incisure (Mounier et al., 2009), location and trajectory of the mylohyoid line (Mounier et al., 2009), size of the alveolar plane (Mounier et al., 2009), shape of the gonion (Creed-Miles et al., 1996) and relative position of the lateral prominence to the dentition (Rosas, 2001; Mounier et al., 2009). The state of these characters in the Bañolas mandible is as follow: absence of mental trigone (but slight evidences of a possible mental fossa and a possible central keel) (Fig. 1), triangular anterior basal corpus shape (Figs. 1 and 3), disgastric fossa located in the posterior face of the symphysis (Figs. 1 and 3 ), a single small mental foramen placed in the upper half of the corpus and below the P4 (Fig. 2), absence of retromolar space and an oblique retromolar triangle relative to the alveolar margin (Figs. 2 and 6), small and not lib-shaped medial pteriogoid tubercle (Fig. 5), medially placed condyle relative to the ascending ramus plane (Fig. 4), large dimensions of the submental incisure (Fig. 2), mylohyoid line that starts near the M3 and follows obliquely to the alveolar margin (Fig. 4), not large (wide) alveolar plane (Fig. 6), rounded (not truncated) gonion (Figs. 2 and 4) and anteriorly placed lateral prominence (M2 and M2/ M3 septum) (Fig. 2). Regarding the mandibular foramen, it seems to present a lingula, it could confirm the presence of a normal mandibular foramen type and it would discard the possibility of an H-O mandibular foramen type (Smith, 1978) (Fig. 5). Except for the large submental incisure and the absence of mental trigone, the state of all these characters is more frequent in Homo sapiens specimens (de Lumley, 1973; Smith, 1978; Trinkaus, 1993; Franciscus & Trinkaus, 1995; Antón, 1996; Creed-Miles et al., 1996; Quam & Smith, 1998; Rosas, 2001; Nicholson & Harvati, 2006; Trinkaus, 2006; Mounier et al., 2009). The large submental incisure is a characteristic trait of Homo heidelbergensis and the absence of mental trigone is a plesiomophic character shared by Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis and some upper Pleistocene Homo sapiens individuals (Schwartz & Tattersall , 2000). On the view of this work our conclusion is that the Bañolas mandible shows neither derived Neandertal traits nor clear affinities to H. heidelbergensis. On the contrary, this specimen bears a greater resemblance to the H. sapiens mandibles.Depto. de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y PaleontologíaFac. de Ciencias GeológicasTRUEpu

Effectiveness and safety of guselkumab for the treatment of psoriasis in real-world settings at 24 weeks: A retrospective, observational, multicentre study by the Spanish Psoriasis Group.

Data on the effectiveness and safety of a drug in real-world clinical practice complement the evidence from clinical trials, which are carried out in a different setting. Little has been published on the effectiveness and safety of guselkumab in the treatment of psoriasis in clinical practice. The ojective of this study was to assess the effectiveness and safety of guselkumab at 24 weeks in patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in routine clinical practice. A retrospective, multicentre study of adult patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis treated with guselkumab for at least 24 weeks was carried out in Spain. We studied 343 patients, 249 of whom were followed for 24 weeks. By week 24, the mean (SD) psoriasis area severity index (PASI) had decreased from 11.1 (7.3) to 1.7 (2.8) (-9.3; [-10.2;-8.4]), 85.9% of the patients had achieved PASI score of 4 or less and 77.9% a PASI score of 2 or less. In terms of relative PASI response, 59.4% of the patients achieved a PASI-90 response and 49.0% a PASI-100 response. On multivariate analysis, two factors reduced the probability of a PASI of 2 or less at 24 weeks: a BMI ≥30 (OR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.22-0.88) and a greater previous exposure to biologic therapy (OR, 0.69; 95% CI, [0.56-0.84]). Adverse events were rare (9.9%) and led to withdrawal from treatment in only nine patients (2.6%) by the end of the follow-up period. The results of this study confirm the high efficacy and safety of guselkumab indicated by the clinical trial data. In clinical practice, the absolute PASI score appears to be a better marker of response to treatment than the relative value

Neandertal roots: Cranial and chronological evidence from Sima de los Huesos

Seventeen Middle Pleistocene crania from the Sima de los Huesos site (Atapuerca, Spain) are analyzed, including seven new specimens. This sample makes it possible to thoroughly characterize a Middle Pleistocene hominin paleodeme and to address hypotheses about the origin and evolution of the Neandertals. Using a variety of techniques, the hominin-bearing layer could be reassigned to a period around 430,000 years ago. The sample shows a consistent morphological pattern with derived Neandertal features present in the face and anterior vault, many of which are related to the masticatory apparatus. This suggests that facial modification was the first step in the evolution of the Neandertal lineage, pointing to a mosaic pattern of evolution, with different anatomical and functional modules evolving at different rates