Scoliosis facilitates terrestrial feeding from grasses, trees, and bushes. Given the many benefits of bipedality which depends on a particularly formed spine, it is likely that selection for bipedalism played a large role in the development of the spine as we see it today, in spite of the potential for "scoliotic deviations". According to the fossil record, scoliosis may have been more prevalent among earlier hominids such as Australopithecus and Homo erectus, when bipedality was first emerging. Their fossils indicate that there may have been selection over time for a slight reduction in lumbar length to what we see today, favoring
Neuromechanics of idiopathic scoliosis Besides, idiopathic scoliosis being more frequent in certain families, it is suspected to be transmitted via autosomal dominant inheritance. Estrogens could also play a crucial part in the progression of idiopathic scoliosis through their roles in bone formation, growth, maturation and turnover. Finally, collagen, intervertebral disc and muscle abnormalities have been suggested as the cause in idiopathic scoliosis, although these are perhaps results rather than causes. The patient’s age at presentation of scoliosis, the remaining growth, the menarche status and the magnitude of the curve are used to foresee the idiopathic scoliosis curve progression. However, the relative importance of each