Variation and inheritance of relative length of index finger in man

Ramesh, A.; Murty, J. S.

doi:10.1080/03014467700002461

Cited by 28 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Published data related to the genetic influence over this interesting phenotype is scarce. Ramesh and Murty (1977) examined the relative lengths of the index and ring fingers of the parents and children of 190 families sampled from a mainly agricultural community living in India by visual comparison of the outstretched hand aligned on graph paper. Heritabilities of between 40% and 68% were estimated from parent-offspring regression and 33 and 66% from full sibling intraclass correlation data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritability of the Second to Fourth Digit Ratio (2d:4d): A Twin Study

et al. 2006

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritability of the Second to Fourth Digit Ratio (2d:4d): A Twin Study

et al. 2006

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“…A cautious summary statement of these findings is that majority of studies report an interaction between Sex and Finger, such that the prevalence of r Ͼ i is more common in men than in women. Among the minority of dissenting studies is the work by Ramesh and Murty (1977), who used the ring finger as standard against which the index finger was compared. Ramesh and Murty (1977) found no appreciable sex differences, with a pattern of r Ͼ i prevailing for both sexes.…”

Section: Studies That Report On Finger Length In Terms Of Distal Extementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the minority of dissenting studies is the work by Ramesh and Murty (1977), who used the ring finger as standard against which the index finger was compared. Ramesh and Murty (1977) found no appreciable sex differences, with a pattern of r Ͼ i prevailing for both sexes. Their data are not included in Table 1 because they provide average differences only, which do not allow a deconstruction into frequencies.…”

Section: Studies That Report On Finger Length In Terms Of Distal Extementioning

confidence: 99%

Finger length and distal finger extent patterns in humans

Peters

Mackenzie

Bryden

2002

American J Phys Anthropol

149

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The fingers in the adult human hand differ in length and in distal extent. The literature agrees that in the clear majority of males, the distal extent of the ring finger tends to be relatively greater (using the middle finger as standard) than the index finger. However, the results for females vary considerably, with some studies reporting that females show a similar pattern to that of males, while others suggest that the prevalence of a longer index finger is relatively or absolutely more common in females. We provide a review of the literature, and a set of data for both finger length and distal fingertip extent of the finger for a contemporary cohort of young adult females and males (n = 502). Finger length measures favor the ring finger of both sexes, with smaller between-finger differences for females than for males. However, while the distal fingertip extent favors the ring finger of both hands in males, in females the left hand shows no significant differences, and the right hand shows a small index finger advantage. Thus, the sexual dimorphism in finger measures is more strongly expressed in the distal extent of fingertips than in the length of fingers. The sex differences in distal fingertip extent derive from the index finger only, with a lesser distal extent of the index finger, relative to the middle finger, in males than in females.

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“…Quantitative genetic studies of digit ratio have not been undertaken in birds, but in humans one such study (Ramesh & Murty 1977) indicates that the trait is highly heritable (heritability around 58%). Ramesh and Murty found no indication of a maternal effect, since mothers did not resemble their offspring more than fathers, and since fullsibs were no more similar to each other than expected from midparent-offspring regressions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative genetics and behavioural correlates of digit ratio in the zebra finch

Forstmeier

2005

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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A recent study on a captive zebra finch population suggested that variation in digit ratio (i.e. the relative length of the second to the fourth toe) might be an indicator of the action of sex steroids during embryo development, as is widely assumed for human digits. Zebra finch digit ratio was found to vary with offspring sex, laying order of eggs within a clutch, and to predict aspects of female mating behaviour. Hence, it was proposed that the measurement of digit ratio would give insights into how an individual's behaviour is shaped by its maternal environment. Studying 500 individuals of a different zebra finch population I set out to: (1) determine the proximate causes of variation in digit ratio by means of quantitative genetics and (2) to search for phenotypic and genetic correlations between digit ratio, sexual behaviour and aspects of fitness. In contrast to the earlier study, I found no sexual dimorphism in digit ratio and no effect of either laying order or experimentally altered hatching order on digit ratio. Instead, I found that variation in digit ratio was almost entirely additive genetic, with heritability estimates ranging from 71 to 84%. The rearing environment (from egg deposition to independence) explained an additional 5-6% of the variation in digit ratio, but there was no indication of any maternal effects transmitted through the egg. I found highly significant phenotypic correlations (and genetic correlations of similar size) between digit ratio and male song rate (positive correlation) as well as between digit ratio and female hopping activity in a choice chamber (negative correlation). Rather surprisingly, the strength of these correlations differed significantly between subsequent generations of the same population, illustrating how quickly such correlations can appear and disappear probably due to genotype-environment interactions.

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Variation and inheritance of relative length of index finger in man

Cited by 28 publications

References 2 publications

Heritability of the Second to Fourth Digit Ratio (2d:4d): A Twin Study

Heritability of the Second to Fourth Digit Ratio (2d:4d): A Twin Study

Finger length and distal finger extent patterns in humans

Quantitative genetics and behavioural correlates of digit ratio in the zebra finch

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