An unusually-wide human bregmatic Wormian bone: anatomy, tomographic description, and possible significance

• DOI: 10.1007/s00276-008-0371-0
• Publication Date: 2008-06-03T02:41:41Z
• Authors: Fabrizio Barberini; Emiliano Bruner; Roberto Cartolari; Gianfranco Franch...; Rosemarie Heyn; Francesca Ricci; Giorgio Manzi
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 03 medical and health sciences; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Skull; Humans; Female; Cranial Sutures; Tomography, X-Ray Computed; bregma; digital endocast; gross anatomy; human skull; ossicle at bregma; wormian bones; Aged

Supernumerary ossicles (or Wormian bones) of the cranial vault are formations associated with insufficient rate of suture closure, and regarded as "epigenetic" and "hypostotic" traits. These bones rest along sutures and/or fill fontanelles of the neonatal skull. In this autoptic report of a 66-year-old Caucasian woman, a peculiar supernumerary bone is described, unusual size and shape, filling completely the bregmatic fontanelle. The skull was CT-scanned through coronal sections at 80 kV and 60 mA, with a slice thickness of 1.0 mm and a resolution of 0.35 mm/pixel. Segmentation and 3D rendering were computed using MIMICS 7.0 (digital endocast). The bone was pentagonal and remarkably large, more on the exocranial surface than on the endocranial one, involving both tables and diploe of the vault. This feature might represent a wedge to completion of the vault architecture. Considering the functional and structural matrix of cranial morphogenesis, this case displays the possibility of discrete diversification of the ossification centres, as well as the relative stability of the structural skull matrix in response to discrete changes.