Levator veli palatini at a glance
- What it is
- A muscle of the soft palate.
- Location
- Origin: cartilage of the auditory tube and petrous temporal bone. Insertion: palatine aponeurosis.
- Function
- Elevates the soft palate to seal off the nasopharynx during swallowing.
- Body system
- Muscular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA46729 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Innervation: pharyngeal plexus (vagus nerve, CN X)
- It enters the soft palate above the upper border of the superior pharyngeal constrictor.
- Blood supply: ascending palatine and greater palatine arteries
Clinical relevance
Weakness causes nasal speech and nasal regurgitation.
Structures next to the levator veli palatini
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Salpingopharyngeus · muscular
- Internal carotid artery · cardiovascular
- Tensor veli palatini · muscular
- Superior pharyngeal constrictor · muscular
- Rectus capitis anterior · muscular
- Uvular muscle · muscular
- Stylohyoid · muscular
- Digastric · muscular
- Stylopharyngeus · muscular
- Stylohyoid ligament · skeletal
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Levator veli palatini (FMA46729). 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.