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A Multi‐Year Quantitative Analysis of Semispinalis Capitis Morphological Variations in the Neck
Author(s) -
Bee Mary Tracy,
Ciavaglia Marco,
Elturk Adam,
Aljerdi Ibrahim,
Mehrabi Negar
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.616.37
Subject(s) - anatomy , tendon , cadaver , neck muscles , head and neck , medicine , biology , surgery
The semispinalis capitis muscle is located in the posterior neck of humans. This muscle allows us to extend our head and neck. The semispinalis capitis muscle is also known as the biventer cervicis muscle. The majority of anatomy textbooks and atlases depict this muscle as containing two bellies of muscle with a linear intervening white tendinous band that neatly separates the muscle into upper and lower parts. We dissected the posterior neck and upper back of 48 cadavers with a total of 96 individual muscles in order to isolate this muscle and gain better clarification of this muscle's appearance. We found that this muscle does not appear as commonly depicted in most anatomy books. Instead we found that its intervening tendon is not linearly horizontal. Its tendon consists of multiple different parts that are commonly disconnected and lie either superior or inferior to each other in three different categories. The three main classifications include two uniform vertical bands, one vertical with one curved band, and an other group. We found that 56.9 percent falls in the two uniform vertical band classification, 23.2 percent falls in the one vertical one curved band classification, and 19.9 percent falls in the other classification. We recommend that artists change the way in which this muscle is drawn in anatomical textbooks. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .