Although highly informative, the creation of FE computer simulations (built from CAT scan data) has been time consuming and their resolution insufficient to incorporate the multiple material properties of bone.

Advances that we have made over the last year place us at the forefront of this exciting new field and our approaches represent major steps forward in the simulation of vertebrate skull mechanics. These include:

1, a method for the incorporation of variable properties for bone, allowing for more realistic modeling of structural behaviour;

2, the addition of jaw joints that facilitate accurate reconstruction of the 3-D architecture of muscle;

3, procedures that allow statistical analyses of brick stress and strain, and

4, despite the complexity of these models (up to an order of magnitude higher in resolution than has been developed for comparable studies), our protocols produce simulations which can be quickly assembled and solved on standard desktop computers.