| Latin | Musculus splenius capitis |
|---|---|
| Origin |
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| Insertion |
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| Action |
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| Nerve | Posterior (dorsal) rami of the cervical spinal nerves (C3–C4) |
| Name | Greek splenion, 'bandage', and Latin caput, 'head'; it wraps over the deeper neck muscles like a bandage. |
Palpation
- Client supine with the head resting in your hands; sit at the head of the table.
- Find the mastoid process behind the ear, then slide the fingers down and in, just behind the back edge of the sternocleidomastoid.
- Between the sternocleidomastoid in front and the upper trapezius behind, feel the flat sheet of splenius with fibres running up and out towards the mastoid.
- Ask the client to turn the head slightly towards the side you are palpating against light resistance from your hand; feel splenius tighten.
Splenius capitis lies under Trapezius in the lower neck. Near the skull it passes under Sternocleidomastoid to reach the Mastoid process. It forms part of the floor of the posterior triangle of the neck, the small gap between these two superficial muscles, where you can feel it without trapezius in the way.
Rotation is a useful way to tell it from the sternocleidomastoid. Splenius turns the face to the same side; the sternocleidomastoid turns it to the opposite side. Deep to splenius lies Semispinalis capitis.
Sources disagree on the exact attachments and nerves. For the lowest spinous process of origin, the Wikipedia infobox gives T3, its body text T2, and Gray’s (1918) “the upper three or four thoracic”. Wikipedia gives the nerve supply as dorsal rami of C3–C4, while Gray’s says the middle and lower cervical nerves.