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Transverse cervical artery: anatomy, location and function

A branch of the thyrocervical trunk to the neck. It supplies trapezius, levator scapulae and the rhomboids.

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Highlighted in the model: Transverse cervical artery. Click any part to read about it, or switch off “Highlight topic” to see the whole body. 3D data: BodyParts3D, © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0; meshes simplified and recoloured. The model is an adult male.

Transverse cervical artery at a glance

What it is
A branch of the thyrocervical trunk to the neck.
Location
It arises from the thyrocervical trunk or directly from the subclavian artery, crosses the posterior triangle of the neck and divides into superficial and deep branches.
Function
It supplies trapezius, levator scapulae and the rhomboids.
Body system
Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
FMA ID
FMA10682 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)

Key facts

  • Its superficial branch runs with the spinal accessory nerve to trapezius, and its deep branch, when present, is the dorsal scapular artery.

Structures next to the transverse cervical artery

The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:

References

  1. Foundational Model of Anatomy: Transverse cervical artery (FMA10682). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
  2. OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
  3. 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.