Obliquus capitis superior muscle

Obliquus capitis superior muscle
	Skull seen from behind (obliquus capitis superior shown in red)
	Obliquus capitis superior (red) and its relationship to other suboccipital muscles.
Details
Latin	Musculus obliquus capitis superior
Origin	Lateral mass of atlas
Insertion	Lateral half of the inferior nuchal line
Nerve	Suboccipital nerve
Actions	Extends head and flex head to the ipsilateral side
Identifiers
Dorlands; /Elsevier	m_22/12549857
TA	Lua error in Module:Wikidata at line 744: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
TH	{{#property:P1694}}
TE	{{#property:P1693}}
FMA	{{#property:P1402}}
	Anatomical terms of muscle [[[d:Lua error in Module:Wikidata at line 863: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).\|edit on Wikidata]]]

The obliquus capitis superior muscle (/əˈblaɪkwəs ˈkæpᵻtᵻs/) is a small muscle in the upper back part of the neck and is one of the suboccipital muscles. It arises from the lateral mass of the atlas bone. It passes superiorly and posteriorly to insert into the lateral half of the inferior nuchal line on the external surface of the occipital bone. The muscle is innervated by the suboccipital nerve, the dorsal ramus of the first spinal nerve.

It acts at the atlanto-occipital joint to extend the head and flex the head to the ipsilateral side.

Additional images

Position of obliquus capitis superior (shown in red). Animation.
Still image. Posterior view.
Deep muscles of the back (obliquus capitis superior labeled at upper left)
Occipital bone. Outer surface. Muscle attachments are shown as red circles.
Gray187.png

Base of skull. Inferior surface. Muscle attachments are shown as red circles.

This article incorporates text in the public domain from the 20th edition of Gray's Anatomy (1918)