Vocalis at a glance
- What it is
- The medial part of thyro-arytenoid lying along the vocal ligament.
- Location
- Originates from the thyroid angle and inserts onto the vocal process of the arytenoid cartilage.
- Function
- Adjusts tension of the vocal ligament for fine pitch control.
- Body system
- Muscular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA46593 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Innervation: recurrent laryngeal nerve (CN X)
- Its attachment along the vocal ligament allows parts of the vocal fold to be tensed or relaxed separately, refining pitch and voice quality.
Structures next to the vocalis
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Vocal ligament · respiratory
- Conus elasticus · respiratory
- Thyroid cartilage · respiratory
- Thyro-epiglottic ligament · respiratory
- Lateral crico-arytenoid · muscular
- Arytenoid cartilage · respiratory
- Cricoid cartilage · respiratory
- Straight part of cricothyroid · muscular
- Thyro-arytenoid · muscular
- Transverse arytenoid · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Vocalis (FMA46593). 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.