Lateral crico-arytenoid at a glance
- What it is
- An intrinsic laryngeal muscle that closes the vocal folds.
- Location
- Origin: lateral part of the arch of the cricoid cartilage. Insertion: muscular process of the arytenoid cartilage.
- Function
- Adducts the vocal folds by rotating the arytenoids inward, closing the glottis.
- Body system
- Muscular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA46581 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Innervation: recurrent laryngeal nerve (vagus, CN X)
- It is the main antagonist of posterior crico-arytenoid, the only abductor of the vocal folds.
- Blood supply: laryngeal branches of the superior and inferior thyroid arteries
Structures next to the lateral crico-arytenoid
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Oblique part of cricothyroid · muscular
- Posterior crico-arytenoid · muscular
- Conus elasticus · respiratory
- Cricoid cartilage · respiratory
- Straight part of cricothyroid · muscular
- Arytenoid cartilage · respiratory
- Vocalis · muscular
- Vocal ligament · respiratory
- Transverse arytenoid · muscular
- Oblique arytenoid · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Lateral crico-arytenoid (FMA46581). 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.