Family studies of the shovel trait in the maxillary central incisor

Abstract

Inheritance of the shovel trait in the maxillary central incisor was investigated on the basis of the casts obtained from 41 Japanese families. The trait was expressed in terms of the depth of the lingual fossa, and statistically treated as a continuous character that showed normal distribution curve. Studies on twins showed genetic control of this character. The heritability was also found to be very high among family members.