posterior crico-arytenoid

The posterior cricoarytenoid muscles are extremely small, paired muscles that extend from the posterior cricoid cartilage to the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx. By rotating the arytenoid cartilages laterally, these muscles abduct the vocal cords and thereby open the rima glottidis. Their action opposes the lateral cricoarytenoid muscles. The posterior cricoarytenoid muscles receive innervation from the recurrent laryngeal branch of the vagus nerve (CN X). Paralysis of the posterior cricoarytenoid muscles may lead to asphyxiation as they are the only laryngeal muscles to open the true vocal folds, allowing inspiration and expiration. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the posterior crico-arytenoid is

The posterior cricoarytenoid muscles are extremely small, paired muscles that extend from the posterior cricoid cartilage to the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx. By rotating the arytenoid cartilages laterally, these muscles abduct the vocal cords and thereby open the rima glottidis. Their action opposes the lateral cricoarytenoid muscles. The posterior cricoarytenoid muscles receive innervation from the recurrent laryngeal branch of the vagus nerve (CN X). Paralysis of the posterior cricoarytenoid muscles may lead to asphyxiation as they are the only laryngeal muscles to open the true vocal folds, allowing inspiration and expiration. The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the posterior 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 posterior 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 posterior cricoarytenoid, posterior cricoarytenoid muscle, posterior cricoarytenoideus, cricoarytaenoideus posterior, cricoarytænoideus posterior and musculus cricoarytenoideus posterior. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0008572, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

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

Questions

Where is the posterior 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 posterior crico-arytenoid connect to?

Part of: larynx.

Is the posterior 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.