Corpus: Suboccipital nerve
Synonym: occipital nerve
1. Definition
The suboccipital nerve is the posterior branch (dorsal ramus) of the first spinal nerve. As a pure motor nerve, it supplies the intrinsic dorsal muscles in the deep triangle of the neck. There is no C1 dermatome because the suboccipital nerve does not contain any sensory fibers.
2. Anatomy
The motor fibers innervate the following muscles:
- Lesser posterior straight muscle of the head
- greater posterior straight muscle of the head
- Obliquus superior capitis muscle
- Obliquus inferior capitis muscle
Additional fibers reach the semispinalis capitis muscle and the longissimus capitis muscle.