Genioglossus at a glance
- What it is
- The largest extrinsic tongue muscle, forming most of the tongue bulk.
- Location
- Origin: superior mental spine of the mandible. Insertion: the tongue (whole length of the underside) and the hyoid body.
- Function
- Protrudes and depresses the tongue.
- Body system
- Muscular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA46702 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Innervation: hypoglossal nerve (CN XII)
- Blood supply: lingual artery
Clinical relevance
With hypoglossal nerve injury the tongue deviates toward the weak side on protrusion.
Structures next to the genioglossus
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Tongue · digestive
- Hyoglossus · muscular
- Mylohyoid · muscular
- Geniohyoid · muscular
- Gingiva of lower jaw · digestive
- Sublingual gland · digestive
- Lower second secondary premolar tooth · digestive
- Lower first secondary molar tooth · digestive
- Submandibular gland · digestive
- Mandible · skeletal
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Genioglossus (FMA46702). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §11.2 Naming Skeletal Muscles. 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.