Semispinalis thoracis at a glance
- What it is
- A transversospinal muscle of the upper back.
- Location
- Originates from the transverse processes of T6 to T10 and inserts onto the spinous processes of C6 to T4.
- Function
- Extends the thoracic and cervical spine and rotates it to the opposite side.
- Body system
- Muscular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA22872 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Innervation: dorsal rami of thoracic spinal nerves
- It is the thinnest part of semispinalis, lying deep to longissimus and spinalis and superficial to multifidus.
Structures next to the semispinalis thoracis
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Seventh thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Thoracic rotator · muscular
- Sixth thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Intervertebral disk of sixth thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Levatores costarum breves · muscular
- Intervertebral disk of seventh thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Levatores costarum longi · muscular
- Eighth thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Intervertebral disk of fifth thoracic vertebra · skeletal
- Fifth thoracic vertebra · skeletal
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Semispinalis thoracis (FMA22872). 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.