Branches
The cervical plexus has two types of branches: cutaneous and muscular.
- Cutaneous (4 branches):
- Lesser occipital nerve - innervates lateral part of occipital region (C2 ONLY)
- Great auricular nerve - innervates skin near concha auricle and external acoustic meatus (C2&C3)
- Transverse cervical nerve - innervates anterior region of neck (C2&C3)
- Supraclavicular nerves - innervate region of supraspinatus, shoulder, and upper thoracic region (C3,C4)
- Muscular
- Ansa cervicalis (loop formed from C1-C3), etc. (geniohyoid (C1 only), thyrohyoid (C1 only), sternothyroid, sternohyoid, omohyoid)
- Phrenic (C3-C5 (primarily C4))-innervates diaphragm and the pericardium
- Segmental branches (C1-C4)- innervates anterior and middle scalenes
Read more about this topic: Cervical Plexus
Famous quotes containing the word branches:
“We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hang on to the branches and abandon the trunk and body.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Think how stood the white pine tree on the shore of the Chesuncook, its branches soughing with the four winds, and every individual needle trembling in the sunlight,—think how it stands with it now,—sold, perchance, to the New England Friction-Match Company!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)