by the end of this video you'll know how to remember all of these muscles very easily that's because today we're going over tips tricks and mnemonics to remember all the muscles of the anterior neck and let's get started with the most superficial of these muscles the platysma so the way I remember what the platysma is all about is I think of it like theater curtains for the anterior neck because obviously theater currents are the first thing you see when you get to the stage well the platysma is the most superficial of all these muscles it also drapes across the entire stage from the top of the pectoralis major up to the mandible so if we look at the skull inserts here on the mandible it also inserts on the soft tissue near the corners of the mouth another reason I think a theater curtains is to remind me that this muscle is pure drama its main job is to pull on the corners of the mouth and create facial expressions like frowns fear and rage and when you make these Expressions when you just try to give a little frown and kind of feel above your clavicles you can feel the platysma activate and create these platysmal bands it's the same way if you pull theater currents open the fabric will bend up while the platysma is basically doing the same thing and fun fact yes the Hulk does have a platysma and it's not very happy to see you now directly deep to the platysma we have the sternocleidomastoid muscle which is named after its three attachment points the Sterno aka the sternum the clydo which is Greek for clavicle and the mastoid which stands for the mastoid process of the temporal bone now the most important thing to note about the sternocleidomastoid basically is how it works because when it gets shortened and contracted you get a condition called torticollis AKA Rye Neck the easiest way to understand how the sternocleidomastoid works is just to try it out for yourself so what you can do is take your index finger and your middle finger and place it on your mastoid process right behind your ear and then have your thumb come down to the sternoclavicular junction and this will basically mimic the activation pattern of the SCM now if we do both sides so if the sem activates both sides at once with the neck relaxed if you pull those fingers down you can see we get head extension so that's with the neck relaxed if the neck is rigid or other muscles are kind of making it tense and we pull again you see we get neck flexion so it can either be head extension or neck flexion depending on if the neck is rigid or relaxed now when the sem activates unilaterally just one side we get two entirely different actions so if you do just one side at a time pulling those fingers down you see we get contralateral rotation rotating away but we also get ipsilateral side bending so we're side bending towards the side that's activating so it can be a little tricky but just you know try it a few times both sides and you'll kind of get an idea how this Muscle Works or another way you can think about it is just remember you turn away from a Stern muscle so if the SCM is on the bottom left your nose is going to go to the top right when you're activating unilaterally so just remember you turn away from a Stern muscle this Stern muscle right here so that covers the two superficial muscles of the anterior neck and now we can get into the eight hyoid muscles the good news here is that each is named with the origin first so the first part of the name is the origin and the insertion is the second half of the name so if your professor gets real specific about Origins versus insertions just remember the origin is the first part of the name and the insertion is the second part so it's not something you have to try to remember or memorize going forward okay so there are four super hyoid muscles which are above the hyoid bone and elevate it while the four infrahyon muscles are below and depress it and all of which plays a role in swallowing the first Super hybrid muscle we'll talk about is the general hyoid which runs underneath the tongue from the medial inner surface on the mandible so if we take a look at the mandible here so the inner surface right here at a place called The inferior mental spine so usually there's a little protrusion on the mandible that this model doesn't show but it comes off the inferior mental spine on the inner surface of the mandible and then runs down and inserts on the a hyoid bone itself now the way I remember that General hyoid is that genio actually translates to Chin because this muscle originates so close to the chin but the way I think about it as I think of it as genio as the Genesis of the hyoid muscles and why Genesis because it's kind of like the universe before the Big Bang it's very concentrated it's tightly it's narrow it's medial everything's kind of centered in one place just like the universe before the Big Bang and all the other muscles are like after the big bang after the explosion they're expanding outwards they're longer they're more superficial they're kind of expanding away from this area so for the genuine hyoid remember it's the Deep medial and tightly narrow muscle that kind of starts at all beneath the general hyoid we have the myelohyoid which is considered the floor of the mouth now Milo actually translates to molar because this muscle originates so close to your molars at the Milo hyoid line which you can actually feel so if we take a look at the mandible here and if you feel your back your molars like here and then move down you'll feel this Ridge and this is the Milo hyoid line and this is where the myelohyoid originates from so originates off both sides it then comes together kind of a swooping hammock style so it's basically a hammock for your tongue it then runs down inserts on the hyoid bone itself so the way I remember this is I think of my low as the low point of the mouth our next muscle is the stylohyoid and it's styloid because it originates off the styloid process of the temporal bone so these pointy processes right here are the styloid processes and this is the origin point of the stylohyoid and it's pretty easy to remember because the styloid is basically just like a stylus you would use on your tablet or your phone you know it's that thin pointy stylus well these are the thin pointy processes coming off the temporal bone and it originates here and then goes down to the hyoid bone the last muscle of this group is the digastric muscle which translates to double belly because it has an anterior and a posterior belly and they're actually controlled by different nerves so the anterior belly originates off the inside of the mandible right here and then the posterior belly originates off the mastoid Notch which is the medial surface of the mastoid process what happens then is this muscle runs down and these muscles connect into one tendon and that tendon then inserts onto the hyoid bone itself so to remember the pathway and layout of the digastric muscle here's a little trick you can use so create an L with your finger and your thumb and place your thumb underneath your chin and your index finger at the mastoid process and boom this is basically the digastric muscle so your index finger represents the posterior belly coming off the mastoid process your thumb is the anterior belly coming off the inner surface of the mandible and they meet right here at the webbing of your thumb and create that tendon and that tendon is what inserts on the hyoid bone and if you feel around you can probably find the highway bone right around there so this is basically how the digastric muscle runs an easy way to remember it for later on the test now we can finish things off with the four infra hyoid muscles the first three muscles in this group are fairly straightforward and their name basically tells you everything you need to know the sternohyoid is just a straight shot from the sternum up to the hyoid bone so it's called the sternohyoid next we have two thyroid-based muscles that are almost one muscle just divided into half the sternothyroid muscle goes from the sternum up to the thyroid cartilage and then it's basically continued on by the thyrohyoid muscle which goes from the thyroid cartilage up to the hyoid so again basically their name tells you everything you need to know and finally our last muscle is the omohyoid which is a very long muscle that goes all the way from the scapula the top Superior surface of the scapula to the hyoid and the way I remember this muscle is by thinking of omo of omohyoid standing for on I own because no other hyoid muscle even knows where the scapula is let alone originates there so again omohyoid for on my own because it's way out there in The Boondocks all on its own off the superior scapula and then it comes in and inserts on the hyoid bone and that covers the muscles of the anterior neck I hope it helped you out there as always thanks for watching and of course good luck on your next test foreign thank you