lateral crico-arytenoid

The lateral cricoarytenoid (also anterior cricoarytenoid) muscles extend from the lateral cricoid cartilage to the ipsilateral arytenoid cartilage. By rotating the arytenoid cartilages medially, these muscles adduct the vocal cords and thereby close the rima glottidis, protecting the airway. (Their action is antagonistic to that of the posterior cricoarytenoid muscles. ) The lateral cricoarytenoid muscles receive innervation from the recurrent laryngeal branch of the vagus nerve (CN X). Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the lateral crico-arytenoid is

The lateral cricoarytenoid (also anterior cricoarytenoid) muscles extend from the lateral cricoid cartilage to the ipsilateral arytenoid cartilage. By rotating the arytenoid cartilages medially, these muscles adduct the vocal cords and thereby close the rima glottidis, protecting the airway. (Their action is antagonistic to that of the posterior cricoarytenoid muscles. ) The lateral cricoarytenoid muscles receive innervation from the recurrent laryngeal branch of the vagus nerve (CN X). The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the lateral crico-arytenoid is

It sits in the neck, within the muscular and respiratory systems. 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 lateral crico-arytenoid connects to

The atlas records 6 typed relationships for it, across 6 kinds of connection. part of larynx.

Supply and innervation

Innervation: recurrent laryngeal nerve.

Also called

Also recorded as lateral cricoarytenoid, lateral cricoarytenoid muscle, lateral cricoarytenoideus, cricoarytaenoideus lateralis, cricoarytaenoideus lateralis muscle and cricoarytænoideus lateralis, and 2 more. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0008573, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: larynx.
• A kind of: laryngeal intrinsic muscle.
• antagonist of: posterior crico-arytenoid.
• Innervated by: recurrent laryngeal nerve.
• inserts into: arytenoid cartilage.
• originates from: cricoid cartilage.

Questions

Where is the lateral crico-arytenoid?

It sits in the neck, within the muscular and respiratory systems. 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 lateral crico-arytenoid connect to?

Part of: larynx.

Is the lateral crico-arytenoid 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.