Directional Terms: Up and Down - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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1
concept
Superior and Inferior
Video duration:
3m
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Video transcript
We're going to start learning about directional terms by talking about what we normally think of as up and down on the body. We're going to have 2 sets of terms here. That first set, you definitely want to know because you're very likely to be tested on it. The second set, you're less likely to be tested on, so check your notes to see what your professor wants you to learn. We're going to go over it regardless because these do these terms do come up, and you should at least be familiar with them, so that you recognize them when you see them. Okay. First up, we have superior and inferior. Superior means towards the top of the body, or we'll say here towards the head. Inferior means lower on the body, or we'll say towards the feet. Now we'll look over here. We have an anatomical model facing to the right, and we have some arrows. The arrow pointing up is labeled as superior. The arrow pointing down is labeled as inferior. So we can pick some random parts in the body and try this out. The chest, that's going to be superior to the abdomen. Now, the abdomen will be inferior to the chest. Remember, we said these terms are always going to be relative. So the chest is going to be inferior to the head. The head is going to be superior to the chest. Alright. We haven't talked about the arms and legs here yet. Know that going forward, we're going to have a separate set of terms that just refers to the arms and legs. And whenever you can, you're going to want to use that separate set of terms that we're going to learn down the line. But for now, know that if you're comparing something on the arms and legs to another part of the body, a part of the body that's not on the arms and legs, you can use the superior and inferior. So the knee is inferior to the abdomen. The abdomen is superior to the knee. But again, remember, we're going to learn another set of terms, so the arms and legs, so keep that in mind going forward. Alright. Superior towards the top of the body, inferior down lower on the body. Our second set of terms follows this sort of it's kind of a weird axis to go on in a person. It goes from the nose, back through the head, and then down through the spine towards the tail. So rostral means towards the nose or beak, and you may say why am I saying beak? It's a human. We have a nose. Well, rostral means beak. You follow that back and you make it to what's called either the cranial or the cephalic. Those terms can be used interchangeably. Cranial cephalic region is the head region, closer to the head in either direction. And then finally, you make it to caudal, and caudal is towards the tail. So I said in a person, that's kind of weird access to follow, and these terms are much more commonly used in animal anatomy. Right? You can imagine a fish or a dog from tail to head to nose is laid out in a perfect perfectly straight line. So those those terms are used much more in that scenario. Where it is used in people is in embryology or developmental biology. Here we have a picture of what's a 5 week embryo. You can see the embryo is laid out on this sort of spiral axis, and at one of the act end of the axis, it has a tail, the caudal region. You can move up and you get closer to the cranial or cephalic region, and you then can pass that and make it all the way to the rostral region. So if you're interested in developmental biology or embryology, you may be using those words more often. Superior and inferior doesn't make as much sense on something that's laid out like that. Okay. But what you really need to know from this part, remember, superior up towards the head, inferior down towards the feet.
2
example
Directional Terms: Up and Down Example 1
Video duration:
2m
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Video transcript
This example asks us to use some of those directional terms that we just learned to put some marks on this body. So before we do that, I want to look at the body. It's a body standing in anatomical position. It's the outline of the body. Now remember, anatomical position is facing forward. I'm going to assume this body is looking at me, so just to remind myself of that and put a little smiley face on it, so I know that we're looking at the front of the body. And now let's look at where we need to put our marks. First, it says to put an asterisk immediately superior to the left hip. Alright. Take a second and see if you can think where that goes. Alright. Immediately superior to the left hip. The first thing I want to do is mark left and right on this body because, remember, it's the body's left and right, not yours. And that can be a little confusing because when you're looking at someone the left and right are opposite. So here, this is the body's left side. This is the body's right side. Now the left hip, therefore, is right here, and if we're going to make a mark immediately superior to it, superior means closer to the head higher up on the body, that means that I'm going to put my mark just above the hip on that left side, right about there, sort of at the bottom of the ribs on the left side. Alright. Our next one says an o immediately inferior to the chest. So take a second, look at the body, think where that's going to go. Okay. Inferior. Inferior means lower, closer to the ground, farther than the head from the head. So inferior to the chest, well that's going to be just under the chest. It doesn't say aside, so I'm just going to put it in the middle and put an o sort of right at the top of the belly there. All right. Next, it says superior to the neck, but inferior to the nose. Alright. Take a second and think about that. Alright. Superior means above, closer to the top of the body. So superior to the neck is going to be somewhere on the head. Inferior to the nose is going to be below the nose, so we need somewhere between the neck and the nose. That's gonna be like the chin or the mouth. So I'm gonna go ahead and put my cross right on that mouse mouth that I drew, and then our final one is going to be immediately inferior to the shoulder. Alright. Inferior to the shoulder. That means lower on the body than the shoulder, but we're going immediately, so just under the shoulder. So I'm gonna put my x sorta right here, kinda in the armpit or a little bit lower. It didn't say left or right, so I just picked the right because there was a there wasn't any writing on that side yet. Right? So there we have it. We have marked up the body. On to some practice problems.
3
Problem
Problem
The pelvis is __________ to the ribs.
A
Superior
B
Cranial
C
Rostral
D
Inferior
4
Problem
Problem
The atlas is the vertebra at the top of the spine that supports the head. The axis is the vertebra just under the atlas and it allows the head to swivel left and right. How are the atlas and axis are arranged using correct terminology?
A
The axis is superior to the atlas. The atlas is inferior to the axis.
B
The atlas is cephalic to the axis. The axis is rostral to the atlas.
C
The axis is inferior to the atlas. The atlas is superior to the axis.
D
The axis is rostral to the atlas. The atlas is caudal to the axis.
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