Anatomy study note · Head and neck

Occipital bone

The bone of the back and base of the skull, surrounding the foramen magnum.

Key points

• Foramen magnum: medulla, vertebral arteries, spinal XI.
• Condyles → atlas; hypoglossal canal above them.
• Forms the floor of the posterior cranial fossa.
• Occipital: interparietal part membrane, rest cartilage.
• Bone: type I collagen + hydroxyapatite.
• Osteoblast builds, osteocyte maintains, osteoclast resorbs.

The full note in the atlas also covers

Features · Histology · Development

Sign in free to see it on the 3D model, read the full note and practise questions on it.

Written from

• Snell’s Clinical Anatomy by Regions, 10th ed., ch. 12, PDF pp. 1489, 1496–1498
• Inderbir Singh’s Human Embryology, ch. 10, PDF pp. 140–141
• BRS Cell Biology & Histology, 7th ed., ch. 7, PDF pp. 121–125, 130

More from the head and neck

• Occipital lobe
• Occipitofrontalis
• Oculomotor nerve
• Olfactory nerve
• Omohyoid
• Ophthalmic artery
• Ophthalmic nerve
• Ophthalmic veins
• Optic nerve
• Orbicularis oculi
• Orbicularis oris
• Palate

Privacy policy · Designed by DATXOC LLC.