Anterior spinal artery at a glance
- What it is
- The anterior spinal artery is a single midline artery that supplies the front of the spinal cord.
- Location
- It forms near the foramen magnum from branches of the two vertebral arteries and runs down the anterior median fissure of the cord. It is reinforced along its length by anterior segmental medullary arteries, including the large artery of Adamkiewicz.
- Function
- It supplies the anterior two-thirds of the spinal cord.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA50532 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Its territory includes the motor tracts and the spinothalamic tracts.
- The artery of Adamkiewicz usually joins it between T9 and L2, most often on the left.
Clinical relevance
Occlusion causes anterior cord syndrome, with loss of motor function and pain and temperature sensation below the lesion.
Structures next to the anterior spinal artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Medulla oblongata · nervous
- Atlas · skeletal
- Central canal of spinal cord · nervous
- Rectus capitis anterior · muscular
- Axis · skeletal
- Rectus capitis lateralis · muscular
- Salpingopharyngeus · muscular
- Vertebral artery · cardiovascular
- Anterior inferior cerebellar artery · cardiovascular
- Levator veli palatini · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Anterior spinal artery (FMA50532). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Related anatomy
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.