Straight part of cricothyroid at a glance
- What it is
- The anterior straight fibers of the cricothyroid muscle of the larynx.
- Location
- Originates from the front of the cricoid arch and inserts onto the lower border of the thyroid cartilage.
- Function
- Tilts the thyroid cartilage forward, lengthening and tensing the vocal folds to raise pitch.
- Body system
- Muscular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA46612 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Innervation: external laryngeal nerve (branch of the superior laryngeal nerve, CN X)
- The only intrinsic laryngeal muscle not supplied by the recurrent laryngeal nerve
Structures next to the straight part of cricothyroid
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Conus elasticus · respiratory
- Oblique part of cricothyroid · muscular
- Cricoid cartilage · respiratory
- Lateral crico-arytenoid · muscular
- Vocalis · muscular
- Vocal ligament · respiratory
- Posterior crico-arytenoid · muscular
- Arytenoid cartilage · respiratory
- Thyro-epiglottic ligament · respiratory
- Transverse arytenoid · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Straight part of cricothyroid (FMA46612). 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.