Thyro-arytenoid at a glance
- What it is
- An intrinsic laryngeal muscle forming the body of the vocal fold.
- Location
- Originates from the lower half of the thyroid angle and cricothyroid ligament and inserts onto the anterolateral surface of the arytenoid cartilage.
- Function
- Shortens and relaxes the vocal folds, lowering pitch, and helps adduct them.
- Body system
- Muscular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA46590 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Innervation: recurrent laryngeal nerve (CN X)
- Its deep medial fibres beside the vocal ligament form vocalis; some upper fibres reach the epiglottis (thyro-epiglottic part) and help close the laryngeal inlet.
Structures next to the thyro-arytenoid
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Cuneiform cartilage · respiratory
- Thyroid cartilage · respiratory
- Epiglottis · respiratory
- Thyrohyoid · respiratory
- Arytenoid cartilage · respiratory
- Corniculate cartilage · respiratory
- Vocalis · muscular
- Vocal ligament · respiratory
- Thyro-epiglottic ligament · respiratory
- Thyrohyoid membrane · respiratory
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Thyro-arytenoid (FMA46590). 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.