Possibility of Human Gender Recognition Using Raman Spectra of Teeth.

Journal: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland)
PMID:

Abstract

Gender determination of the human remains can be very challenging, especially in the case of incomplete ones. Herein, we report a proof-of-concept experiment where the possibility of gender recognition using Raman spectroscopy of teeth is investigated. Raman spectra were recorded from male and female molars and premolars on two distinct sites, tooth apex and anatomical neck. Recorded spectra were sorted into suitable datasets and initially analyzed with principal component analysis, which showed a distinction between spectra of male and female teeth. Then, reduced datasets with scores of the first 20 principal components were formed and two classification algorithms, support vector machine and artificial neural networks, were applied to form classification models for gender recognition. The obtained results showed that gender recognition with Raman spectra of teeth is possible but strongly depends both on the tooth type and spectrum recording site. The difference in classification accuracy between different tooth types and recording sites are discussed in terms of the molecular structure difference caused by the influence of masticatory loading or gender-dependent life events.

Authors

  • Ozren Gamulin
    Department of Physics and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Marko Škrabić
    Department of Physics and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Kristina Serec
    Department of Physics and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Matej Par
    Department of Endodontics and Restorative Dentistry, School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Marija Baković
    Institute of Forensic Medicine and Criminalistics, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Maria Krajačić
    Department of Physics and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Sanja Dolanski Babić
    Department of Physics and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Nikola Šegedin
    Department of Physics and Biophysics, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
  • Aziz Osmani
    Community Health Center "Kutina", 44320 Kutina, Croatia.
  • Marin Vodanović
    Department of Dental Anthropology, School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb, University Hospital Centre, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.