Structure
The carpus, the bony elements of the wrist, form an arch which is convex on the dorsal side of the hand and concave on the palmar side. The groove on the palmar side, the sulcus carpi, is covered by the flexor retinaculum, a sheath of tough connective tissue, thus forming the carpal tunnel. The flexor retinaculum is attached radially to the scaphoid tubercle and the ridge of trapezium, and on the ulna side to the pisiform and hook of hammate.
The narrowest section of the tunnel is located a centimetre beyond the mid-line of the distal row of carpal bones where the sectional area is limited to 1.6 cm2.
The tendons of the flexor digitorum superficialis and profundus pass through a common ulnar sheath, while the tendon of the flexor pollicis longus passes through a separate radial sheath. The mesotendon shared by these tendons is attached to the radial and palmar walls of the carpal tunnel.
Superficial to the carpal tunnel and the flexor retinaculum, the ulnar artery and ulnar nerve pass through the ulnar tunnel.
Read more about this topic: Carpal Tunnel
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)