Anatomy study note · Back
Suboccipital muscles
Four small muscles below the occipital bone — rectus capitis posterior major and minor, obliquus capitis superior and inferior — that produce significant movements at the atlanto-occipital and atlantoaxial joints.
Key points
- Rectus capitis posterior major + minor, obliquus capitis superior + inferior.
- Triangle: RCP major, obliquus superior, obliquus inferior (not RCP minor).
- Contents: vertebral artery + suboccipital nerve (C1 posterior ramus).
- Move the head at the atlanto-occipital and atlantoaxial joints.
- Deep back muscles: dorsal parts of myotomes.
- Trunk muscles: from myotomes of the somites.
- Skeletal muscle: multinucleated, peripheral nuclei, striated.
- Epimysium → perimysium → endomysium.
The full note in the atlas also covers
Relations · Features · Nerve supply · Histology · Development
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Written from
- Snell’s Clinical Anatomy by Regions, 10th ed., ch. 2, PDF p. 159
- Inderbir Singh’s Human Embryology, ch. 7, PDF pp. 108–109
- BRS Cell Biology & Histology, 7th ed., ch. 8, PDF pp. 135–144
More from the back
- Thoracic vertebrae
- Thoracolumbar fascia
- Vertebral column
- Atlas (C1)
- Axis (C2)
- Cervical vertebrae
- Deep muscles of the back
- Intervertebral discs
- Ligaments of the vertebral column
- Lumbar vertebrae
- Spinal cord
- Spinal nerves
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