splenius

A superficial postvertebral muscle innervated by the posterior ramus of the cervical spinal nerve with origins in the upper thoracic and lower cervical spinous processes whose actions are to extend and ipsilaterally rotate the head and neck. Examples: splenius capitis, splenius cervicis. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the splenius is

A superficial postvertebral muscle innervated by the posterior ramus of the cervical spinal nerve with origins in the upper thoracic and lower cervical spinous processes whose actions are to extend and ipsilaterally rotate the head and neck. Examples: splenius capitis, splenius cervicis. The atlas records it as a muscle at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the splenius is

It sits in the back and trunk, within the muscular system. Not positioned individually, and containment is not asserted either. Drawn near structures of the same kind, which is a weak claim about location.

What the splenius connects to

The atlas records 7 typed relationships for it, across 5 kinds of connection. part of dorsum.

Supply and innervation

Innervation: dorsal ramus of spinal nerve.

Also called

Also recorded as splenius muscle. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0002252, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

Part of: dorsum.
A kind of: muscle of back and muscle of vertebral column.
subtype: splenius capitis and splenius cervicis.
Innervated by: dorsal ramus of spinal nerve.
overlaps: dorsal part of neck.

Questions

Where is the splenius?

What does the splenius connect to?

Part of: dorsum.

Is the splenius 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.