What his anatomy? Many people think that studying anatomy is about memorizing texts. This of course might be true, or even could be true, if we would be talking about the anatomy off a cockroach or some other very very simplistic creature. However, we are talking about the human body. The human body is under extremely many aspects probably the most complex organic mechanism/device that has ever existed, and probably will exists. What makes it so complex? Well, the answer isn't that simple. Depending on what aspect we are trying to analyze, we need to understand the function of our body. If we look from the functional perspective, our body has specialized tools, like our hands, feet, fingers etc. but in order to aquire these tools, we as humans need to develop in a specialized manner. The study of this development, is called embryology. This means that when talking about the anatomy of the human, we also have numerous connections with embryology. But we need to understand, that we need to look from a different perspective when it comes to anatomy itself. If I tell you simple text; "the vagus nerve exits the skull through the medial aspects of the jugular foramen where it creates its superior vagal ganglion, about 5mm size in diamteter, continues downwards and creates its inferior vagal ganglion which has a length from approximately 15 to 25 mm and continues downwards targeting the thorax. It runs between the internal jugular vein and internal carotid artery, and later on the in between the jugular vein again and the external and common carotid artery creating the neurovascular bundle off the neck. The right vagus nerve crosses anteriorly the right subclavian artery and the left vagus nerve the anterior aspect of the arch of the aorta. It then enters in the mediastinum where both nerves lie posteriorly to the roots of the lungs, the right vagus nerves runs...." do you think that we can remember all of this information just by memorizing it? Well I can tell you, that yes, this you can. But ask yourself a question, am I really going to remember all of this information? Well, I can help you with this answer: of course we will not remember all of this information just by memorizing words. You need to visualize all of this information in your head so that you can draw an image of what you are trying to know/learn. This of course is the best method to learn topographical anatomy. Another type of division of the anatomy, is the functional anatomy. Functional anatomy talks about what kind of functions our nerves, or muscles or any other general anatomical structures we have. For this type of division, it would be difficult to visualize all of the facts, simply because many of these facts happen deep inside our body. Let me give you an example, again the vagus nerve: The vagus nerve has 3 types fibers; sensory, parasympathetic, and motor. There are some things, that we just need to memorize. Of course there are many techniques, that we can apply. But about these techniques, we are going to talk later on, in a separate article. When talking about muscles, we can draw certain conclusions on their functions just by knowing their origin and insertion points. As an example let's talk about iliopsoas muscle. It consists of two separate muscles, sometimes 3, firstly we have the iliacus m, psoas major muscle and sometimes if present psoas minor muscle. Generally speaking psoas major muscle is innervated by the femoral nerve which has fibers from the lumbar plexus of the ventral rami of the L2, L3, L4 spinal nerves. We know that the psoas muscles have an origin from the vertebral column approximately on the level L1 up to L4, L5. The iliacus muscle, has an origin from the iliac fossa. These 3 muscles join together to form the iliopsoas muscle and the ofcourse its tendon which goes beneath the inguinal ligament. The insertion points of this muscle is a lesser trochanter off the femur bone. Stay Tuned, More coming soon!
