Posterior inferior cerebellar artery at a glance
- Also called
- PICA
- What it is
- The largest branch of the vertebral artery, supplying the underside of the cerebellum and lateral medulla.
- Location
- It usually arises from the intracranial vertebral artery beside the medulla, near the lower end of the olive, loops around the medulla and runs to the underside of the cerebellum. Its origin varies: some arise below the foramen magnum and a few from the basilar artery.
- Function
- It supplies the inferior cerebellum, the vermis and the lateral medulla.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA50519 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It is abbreviated PICA.
- It is the most variable cerebellar artery and is occasionally absent, its territory then supplied by AICA.
Clinical relevance
PICA occlusion causes lateral medullary (Wallenberg) syndrome.
Structures next to the posterior inferior cerebellar artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Tentorium cerebelli · nervous
- Obliquus capitis superior · muscular
- Cerebellum · nervous
- Rectus capitis posterior minor · muscular
- Fourth ventricle · nervous
- Rectus capitis lateralis · muscular
- Rectus capitis posterior major · muscular
- Occipital bone · skeletal
- Anterior spinal artery · cardiovascular
- Inferior temporal gyrus · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Posterior inferior cerebellar artery (FMA50519). 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.