this video was sponsored by kenhub more on them at the end of the video hello and welcome
my name is patrick and in this video i'll teach you some of my tips and tricks for remembering all
of the skeletal muscles of the neck that you would see in an anatomy class and to make this lesson
more manageable for beginners i'll present the list in smaller chunks of four to eight muscles
you can find a list of those sections and time stamps in the description below with that out of
the way let's get into the muscles neck muscles pull double and even triple duty not only do
they support movement of the cervical spine but they also move and support all of the squishy
stuff inside the neck like the tongue palate and airway so this video is organized into two halves
muscles of spinal motion and what i'm calling the muscles of squish the smallest easiest to manage
chunk is composed of the muscles that touch the clavicle it includes my favorite muscle
too the sternocleidomastoid or scm this one sounds complicated but it's one of those muscles that's
intuitive if you break it apart it originates on the sternum and clavicle hence sterno and clydo
and it inserts on the mastoid process of the skull another muscle that inserts on the clavicle is the
platysma a muscle that looks like a big sheet that spans from the mandible down the neck and
on to the upper chest and shoulders which lets you do this motion i usually try to break down
the etymology of these muscles to remember them but for this one just saying platysma makes that
muscle pop both physically and in my memory now both of these muscles are superficial and easy to
see and palpate but the last one is a bit deeper i'm talking about the subclavius which just means
under the clavicle this little guy helps stabilize the delicate collarbone by attaching the clavicle
to the first rib yes you have a couple ligaments at each end holding the clavicle in place but
a broken clavicle which is a super common injury is potentially life-threatening since
there's a major blood supply underneath it that can get nicked by a sharp broken bone
so the subclavius is a nice little insurance policy on the sides of the neck or lateral
spine we have a bunch of long muscles that work together to perform a few actions if only one
side of a lateral neck muscle contracts they bend the neck to the side the scalene group is this
bundle here attaching to the transverse processes of some of the cervical vertebrae and ribs one
and two there are three of them and they follow traditional directional term naming conventions
scalenus anterior scalenous medius and scalenus posterior they get their name because they make a
scalene triangle but i personally always thought that these muscles look more like fish gills
fish are covered in scales so scalenes as we move more laterally we find the levator scapulae
a muscle that starts here on the neck and inserts on the scapula and as the name implies it elevates
the shoulder blade when you look at its insertion and origin this muscle looks like a rope that
pulls up the scapula the four suboccipital muscles are all under the occiput or the back of the skull
and you'll notice that they mostly connect to the head and because of that they all share the latin
root capitis meaning head i remember this one because it's where i put my hand when i put my cap
on my head when we look at this mess of muscles we see two words indicating the muscle's position
rectus and oblique rectus muscles are usually centered on the spine and go straight while
oblique are out on the side and pulse slanted if you feel comfortable with abdominal muscle
anatomy it translates pretty well to these muscles so here we go the rectus capitis posterior major
originates directly on the spinous process of the second cervical vertebrae this thing is centered
on the spine so it's like as rectus as rectus can be the rectus capitis posterior minor has the same
origin so it's centered in rectus but it's smaller so it's minor that's it so all together they're
straight muscles that insert on the back of the head one is big while one is small the others
obliqus capitis superior and obliqus capitis inferior are more lateral than the rectus muscles
the superior muscle goes straight up and down from the transverse process of the axis vertebrae
to the skull the inferioris is the odd one out though it connects the spinous process of the axis
cervical vertebrae 2 to the transverse process of the atlas cervical vertebrae 1. so the capitis
in its name doesn't tell you what it connects to but it does tell you where it is and in this case
it's the bottom bunk buddy to the obliqus capitis superior so while the suboccipital muscles seem
like a big mess if you break apart the names the muscles fall into place moving a little lower
the muscles of the posterior spine we covered some of these posterior spine muscles in the
back muscles video but if you have a study unit on neck muscles it's a good idea to review them
here the semi-spinalis capitis has that latin root capitus in it so we know it connects to the head
the semi-spinalis part is two roots put together spinalis usually means that a structure is
going straight down the midline of the back and semi-spinalis means just to the side of the center
so semi-spinalis capitis then is a pair of muscles that runs on the side of the spine that connect to
the skull lungisimus capitis is this wide muscle that runs all the way from the upper thoracic
vertebrae dabbles down on the cervical vertebrae then attaches to the mastoid process of the skull
when we look at the greater back muscles we see that the longusimus is the thickest and widest
of the erector spinae group and its fibers that attach to the skull certainly keep that theme
finally the splenius capitis inserts on the same spot on the mastoid process the splenius root
means bandage and this muscle looks wide and long like someone unrolled some gauze coming around the
vertebrae there are four muscles on the anterior spine not on the throat but literally on the front
of the vertebrae all wrapped up in connective tissue and as you can imagine if the posterior
neck muscles help extend the spine then these muscles help flex the spine although as we'll
see some are better at it than others like the two rectus capitus muscles in this group are tiny
the rectus capitis anterior is this short guy that connects the vertebrae to the base of the skull
right in front of the foramen magnum the hole where the spinal cord exits the brain the rectus
capitis lateralis inserts on the same cervical vertebrae c1 or the atlas and inserts on the
head although as the name implies more laterally as far as how to remember them we already know
that capitis means that it attaches to the head and rectus means that it's a straight muscle
and we've already seen an example with rectus capitis posterior muscles which both originated
on vertebrae and inserted on the skull the rca and rcl follow the same rules for rectus and capitis
than just plug and play the directional terms the longest capitis is one of our bigger anterior
spine muscles and as the name implies it's much longer than the other muscles around it and it's
got capitis in it so you know it inserts on the skull the tricky thing here is perspective you'll
usually get an anterior view of these muscles and from here it's easy to see that they start on the
spine but it's hard to see where they connect to the skull the anterior diagram always made it seem
like they inserted somewhere on the mandible the light bulb moment for me personally was looking
at an inferior view of the skull from this angle you can see that the basilar part of the occipital
bone extends all the way in front of the foramen magnum and that there's plenty of area here for
muscles to insert the other big muscle is the longest coli muscle a set of muscles that connect
all the vertebrae from thoracic vertebrae 3 all the way up to the top of the cervical vertebrae
and unlike the other muscles in this group longus coli only touches vertebrae and coli means neck
think about it like collar plus it doesn't touch the skull so it doesn't have capitis in its name
taken together if you know your regional terms and your directional terms you're pretty much
set as we leave the muscles of spinal movement and venture into the muscles of squish we need to lay
down some ground rules the good news is that we can still lean on our directional and regional
terms so if you're comfortable with gross anatomy you can suss out where these muscles run the
challenging part is visualizing the squishiness of it all you're used to seeing muscles that
connect bones through distinct thick tendons like there's no doubt that the brachialis connects the
humerus to the ulna but in this unit you'll also see muscles attached to cartilage and other soft
tissues so we'll start off with a chunk of neck muscles that do have a bony attachment the hyoid
is this little c-shaped bone floating around your trachea i say floating because it doesn't directly
articulate with any other bones and when learning these muscles we break them into suprahyoid
and infrahyoid muscles or muscles above and below the hyoid respectively we'll start up top
with the super hyoids first up are the digastric muscles a pair of muscles that come down from the
mastoid process of the skull loop through a band of connective tissue and insert on the mandible
think of it like a pulley system that lets you open your mouth i remember these muscles because
there are two muscle bellies and die means two gastric means stomach so this muscle translates to
two stomachs or two muscle bellies alternatively you can remember that this muscle helps open the
mouth so that food can enter your stomach which gets that gastric root again luckily the other
hyoid muscles all follow the pattern of a prefix followed by hyoid literally showing you where it
connects like the stylohyoid connects the styloid process of the skull to the hyoid the myelohyoid
connects the hyoid to a part of the mandible called the myelohyoid line and the geniohyoid
attaches to a different part of the mandible called the inferior mental spine which is right
under the chin the stylohyoid is clear enough but to differentiate between the myelohyoid and
geniohyoid i imagine them as long facial hair the geniohyoid comes straight down off the chin like
a goatee while the myelohyoid extends off the side more like a mustache so genio goatee milo mustache
the same straightforward naming convention stick around for the infrahyoids the sternohyoid is
this long muscle that connects the sternum to the hyoid underneath it we see a muscle connect the
cartilage of the thyroid to the hyoid so it's called the thyrohyoid but directly below that
muscle's attachment we find the sternothyroid which connects the sternum to the thyroid now
i know what you're thinking that muscle doesn't actually connect to the hyoid so why is it in this
group well based on its position when it contracts it can still move the hyoid the last new one is
the omohyoid muscle which connects the hyoid to the shoulder of all places which is like the last
place you would expect to find a hyoid attachment but those of you who speak spanish probably saw
this one coming elombro is the spanish word for shoulder so the name omohyoid tells us
that it connects the shoulder to the hyoid also i apologize for my spanish finally the hyoglossus
connects the hyoid to the tongue or glosses as long as you can tell where your muscle of interest
attaches to you can identify these muscles next up the soft palate it's that chunk of tissue on
the roof of your mouth just posterior to your bony hard palate because it doesn't have a bony
framework it relies on connective tissue to give it shape keep it in place or move it while eating
and drinking like everything in this unit breaking down the names tells us everything we need to know
the levator veli palatini muscle lifts the soft palate and closes the pathway between your mouth
and nasal cavity keeping you from getting food in your nose looking at this muscle it's clear that
it connects the skull to the soft palate and lifts it upward giving it the name levator palatini the
veli translates to something like veil like a bride's veil giving this muscle a slightly
romantic connotation as well as making sure that you don't snort milk out of your nose a different
muscle around there is the tensor veli palatini which also hooks onto the soft palate but instead
of lifting it straight up it hooks under this bone called the sphenoid bone which changes the
muscle's direction of pull kind of like a pulley because these muscles are pulling horizontally
they apply tension to the palate hence tensor so there are two veli palatini muscles one for
lifting one for tension their angle of pull and etymology give you everything you need to know the
next one to quote cardi b is that little dangly thing right in the back of the throat the uvula
this muscle is made up of epithelium and some glands but the muscular part of it is called the
musculus uvulae if you already know uvula this thing is a gimme the next two are good practice
in latin roots we covered this when we talked about the head muscles but the palatoglossus
connects the palate to the glosses or tongue and the palatopharyngeus connects the palate
to the pharynx like with all muscles that use this naming pattern look at which structures the muscle
connects the next chunk include the six muscles of the pharynx otherwise known as the throat we can
divide these muscles into the constrictors and the longitudinal muscles the constricting muscles wrap
around the throat and contract when you swallow helping you move food down into the stomach and
since our bodies tend to squeeze things through tubes with this segmented action you have multiple
segments of constrictor muscles the superior pharyngeal middle pharyngeal and inferior
pharyngeal muscles they're easy enough to remember since they're just directional terms on the
other hand the longitudinal muscles elevate and shorten the pharynx during speaking or swallowing
we already saw the palatopharyngeus in the last section the one that connects the soft palate to
the pharynx and the next one the stylopharynges has that traditional naming pattern too
it connects the styloid process on the skull to the pharynx specifically the thyroid cartilage
we've seen the stylo prefix a few times already in the stylohyoid and styloglossus but you probably
haven't seen saopinjo in selpendo pharyngeus this muscle attaches the tip of the auditory tube to
the pharynx and fun fact you know how yawning can make you pop your ears well you can thank this
muscle for that coincidentally that's also how i remember this muscle i yawn out so pin jofaringius
the last chunk of muscles in this neck unit includes all of the muscles that attach to the
larynx the seat of the vocal cords and before we move on let's clarify that the pharynx includes
everything from the back of the nose and mouth and the top part of the esophagus while the larynx is
just the topmost part of the trachea which leads to the lungs food goes through the pharynx while
the larynx goes to the lungs a little bonus memory device for you now the secret to understanding the
muscles of the larynx is actually learning the connective tissue of the larynx itself
other than the hyoid bone hanging up top all of these muscles connect pieces of cartilage together
the big piece up top is the epiglottis that seals the larynx shut when you swallow keeping food out
of your airway the thyroid cartilage is the big piece that you see in front on views of
the larynx but it's actually got no posterior covering it's like an open back dress below
that there's the cricoid cartilage the boundary of the larynx before it transitions into the trachea
this one does wrap all the way around the larynx but scattered throughout the larynx
are a few paired pieces of cartilage the most important for us today is the aritenoid cartilage
two little chunks of tissue around the posterior aspect of the cricoid cartilage that's an
important distinction to make though the cricoid wraps around the whole tube but these little guys
are just on the back side now that we've got that anatomy muscles like the cricothyroid make more
sense it connects the cricoid cartilage to the thyroid cartilage and helps shape the vocal cords
the thyroarytenoid connects the thyroid cartilage on the front of the larynx to the arytenoid
cartilage on the back of the larynx cutting through the larynx so it can shape the vocal
cord fair warning though some textbooks include a separate layer of muscle called the vocalis
which would be like right up on the vocal cords and have the same function as the thyroarytenoid
now the two pieces of arytenoid cartilage are connected by two different arytenoid muscles the
transverse arytenoid connects them in a straight line while the oblique arytenoid muscles connect
them in this cool crisscross pattern next the cricoarytenoid connects those pieces of arytenoid
cartilage in the back with different parts of the cricoid cartilage so the posterior cricoarytenoid
connects them on the backside while the lateral muscle connects them on the side so you can see
if you know the main pieces of larynx anatomy then you can figure out the names with these intuitive
naming conventions now these are just the tricks that i personally use to remember these muscles
but if you want another great resource for learning anatomy then you need to check out kenhub
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money back if you wanna see the next video in the muscle memorization series then check out this
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