intercostal muscle
The respiratory muscles that arise from the lower border of one rib and insert into the upper border of the adjoining rib. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.
What the intercostal muscle is
The respiratory muscles that arise from the lower border of one rib and insert into the upper border of the adjoining rib. The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.
Where the intercostal muscle is
It sits in the thorax and trunk, within the muscular system. Not positioned individually. Drawn inside the structure this dataset says contains it — the containment is asserted, the exact spot within it is not.
What the intercostal muscle connects to
The atlas records 11 typed relationships for it, across 7 kinds of connection. part of chest.
Supply and innervation
Innervation: intercostal nerve.
Also called
Also recorded as musculus intercostalis, intercostales, respiratory muscle and rib muscle. Searching any of those names reaches this page.
Source
Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001111, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
- Part of: chest.
- A kind of: anatomical structure, chest organ and muscle organ.
- subtype: external intercostal muscle, innermost intercostal muscle and internal intercostal muscle.
- Innervated by: intercostal nerve.
- inserts into: rib.
- located in: intercostal space.
- originates from: rib.
Questions
Where is the intercostal muscle?
It sits in the thorax and trunk, within the muscular system. Not positioned individually. Drawn inside the structure this dataset says contains it — the containment is asserted, the exact spot within it is not.
What does the intercostal muscle connect to?
Part of: chest.
Is the intercostal muscle the same in other species?
Leumas holds the same relationship vocabulary for every species it carries, so where another dataset records this structure you can put the two side by side on /compare.