Doctor Medicine 6 months ago

Anatomical planes

Anatomical plane An anatomical plane is a hypothetical plane used to transect the human body, in order to describe the location of structures or the direction of movements. In human and animal anatomy, three principal planes are used: The sagittal plane or median plane (longitutinal, anteroposterior) is a plane parallel to the sagittal suture. It divides the body into left and right. The coronal plane or frontal plane (vertival) divides the body into dorsal and ventral (back and front, or posterior and anterior) portions. The transverse plane or axial plane (lateral, horizontal) divides the body into cranial and caudal (head and tail) portions. There could be any number of sagittal planes; however, there is only one cardinal sagittal plane. The term cardinal refers to the one plane that divides the body into equal segments, with exactly one half of the body on either side of the cardinal plane. The term cardinal plane appears in some texts as the principle plane. The terms are interchangeable. Human anatomy A transverse (also known as axial or horizontal) plane is an X-Z plane, parallel to the ground, which (in humans) separates the superior from the inferior, or put another way, the head from the feet. A coronal (also known as frontal or lateral) plane is a Y-X plane, perpendicular to the ground, which (in humans) separates the anterior from the posterior, the front from the back, the ventral from the dorsal. A sagittal (also known as anteroposterior) plane is an Y-Z plane, perpendicular to the ground, which separates left from right. The midsagittal plane is the specific sagittal plane that is exactly in the middle of the body. The midsagittal or median plane is in the midline; i.e. it would pass through midline structures such as the navel or spine, and all other sagittal planes (also referred to as parasagittal planes) are parallel to it. Median can also refer to the midsagittal plane of other structures, such as a digit.