vertebral vein

The vertebral vein is formed in the suboccipital triangle, from numerous small tributaries which spring from the internal vertebral venous plexuses and issue from the vertebral canal above the posterior arch of the atlas. They unite with small veins from the deep muscles at the upper part of the back of the neck, and form a vessel which enters the foramen in the transverse process of the atlas, and descends, forming a dense plexus around the vertebral artery, in the canal formed by the foramina transversaria of the cervical vertebrae. This plexus ends in a single trunk, which emerges from the foramen transversarium of the sixth cervical vertebra, and opens at the root of the neck into the back part of the innominate vein near its origin, its mouth being guarded by a pair of valves. On the right side, it crosses the first part of the subclavian artery. [WP,unvetted]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the vertebral vein is

The vertebral vein is formed in the suboccipital triangle, from numerous small tributaries which spring from the internal vertebral venous plexuses and issue from the vertebral canal above the posterior arch of the atlas. They unite with small veins from the deep muscles at the upper part of the back of the neck, and form a vessel which enters the foramen in the transverse process of the atlas, and descends, forming a dense plexus around the vertebral artery, in the canal formed by the foramina transversaria of the cervical vertebrae. This plexus ends in a single trunk, which emerges from the foramen transversarium of the sixth cervical vertebra, and opens at the root of the neck into the back part of the innominate vein near its origin, its mouth being guarded by a pair of valves. On the right side, it crosses the first part of the subclavian artery. [WP,unvetted]. The atlas records it as a vein at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the vertebral vein is

It sits within the cardiovascular system. Only the system is known. The position shown carries almost no spatial information.

What the vertebral vein connects to

The atlas records 8 typed relationships for it, across 6 kinds of connection. a kind of vein.

Supply and innervation

Venous drainage: anterior vertebral vein and deep cervical vein.

Also called

Also recorded as vena vertebralis. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001588, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

Questions

Where is the vertebral vein?

It sits within the cardiovascular system. Only the system is known. The position shown carries almost no spatial information.

What does the vertebral vein connect to?

A kind of: vein.

Is the vertebral vein 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.