 All right so today what we'll be doing is we'll be looking at the vertebral column and so these are basically the vertebrae that run from your neck all the way down to what we'll call the coccyx and these are going to be attachment points for ribs certainly the pectoral girdle and then also the pelvic bones as well. So essentially if we look at the vertebral column as a whole we have seven cervical vertebrae and you'll notice these are in the neck the first two are going to have special names and we'll talk about those later and you'll notice there's this curvature actually in the cervical vertebral column and that basically develops as the baby learns to hold its head up so you're not born with that curvature. Then we have a 12 thoracic vertebrae which are attached to each of the pairs of ribs and you'll notice this curvature you actually are born with and then you've got five lumbar vertebrae which has their own curvature that develops as you learn to basically stand up and even walk and then finally we have the sacrum and then the coccyx so we'll sort of go over each of these different types of vertebrae separately but before we do other aspects of the entire vertebral column that you can see are the discs that separate the vertebral column and these are going to act as basically shock absorbers they are made up of especially a an outer core of fibro cartilage and sort of an inner core that's more gelatinous than anything else and the major purpose of this is there's a lot of weight bearing down on them so they're really going to help absorb the compressional forces just from holding your body upright. Now these can over time weaken and actually the inner core or the inner jelly core can actually kind of poke into the fibro cartilage and actually create what is called a slit disc and that depending on the extent of that that can actually press on nerves and can actually be quite painful and some people have to have surgery for those. Another feature you can see in this entire verbal column is the intervertebral foramen now do not mix this up with another foramen that we'll talk about a little bit later on but this is where basically the spinal nerves are coming out of the spinal cord and so that's a look at the entire verbal column as a whole. Now looking at some of these individual vertebrae what we'll notice is it's important for you to especially be able to distinguish between three different types of vertebrae the cervical vertebrae which I'll hold one up here thoracic and lumbar. Now the sacrum and the coccyx most people don't usually mix those up with anything else they're fairly distinctive but we'll start off by talking about cervical vertebrae. The first two cervical vertebrae as I mentioned earlier had special names the first one is called the atlas. Atlas was basically a mythological hero who had to hold the world up on his shoulders which basically the skull it's literally holding the skull up so it's kind of appropriate for this. If you kind of look at the atlas and compare it to some other vertebrae some things that you'll notice about it is it's got a much wider hole here called the vertebral foramen and this is basically where the spinal cord is passing through the vertebrae and if you compare it to this cervical vertebrae here you'll notice that it's also distinctly missing this structure here that we call the body of the vertebrae so that's certainly one way to distinguish the atlas from other vertebrae is the fact that it has no body. Now the body is basically going to be the main support so certainly you don't want the atlas to support a lot of weight. Some other structures you do see on the atlas and you would see for all cervical vertebrae is you would see this opening right here this is called the transverse foramen and the transverse foramen is going to be where an artery in a vein actually called the vertebral arteries and veins are actually going to run through and these are the vertebral artery in particular is going to supply blood to the brain it's actually one of two arteries that does so. So that's the atlas the axis is also is the second cervical vertebrae and just like any of the other cervical vertebrae it itself has a transverse foramen and for once again for the same reason so all of the cervical vertebrae are going to have these transverse foramen so if you want to distinguish that from the thoracic and lumbar look for it it's a dead giveaway. Some other so the main unique feature of the axis is this structure here called the dins or the ontoid process dins is certainly a lot easier to spell probably a lot easier to remember but the main thing about this dins is it actually is going to articulate with or the atlas and this is what allows us to basically shake our head no okay is the rotation basically between the atlas and the axis this vertebrae over here is a just a another type of cervical vertebrae and not actual tests we're not going to actually ask you to note if this was the fifth cervical vertebrae or the third one or the seventh one just as long as you recognize it as a cervical vertebrae some other features that haven't previously pointed out I have pointed out the body I have pointed out the vertebral foramen the transverse foramen and once again that is distinctive to the cervical vertebrae two other features that you can notice here is coming actually the way that this vertebrae is oriented is like this so this would be basically the anterior and this is the posterior so really on the posterior side of the verbal column what you're going to be looking at is two bony structures here called the lamina that fuse together to create the spinous process which you could easily feel the spinous processes by feeling the processes and basically your backbone look continuing down the verbal column we have the thoracic vertebrae and if you look at the thoracic vertebrae it's named for the fact that the ribs are attached to it which are part of the thoracic cavity just like the cervical it has a verbal body it has lamina spinous processes and two other structures that I forgot to point out but are the transverse processes which are basically coming off in a horizontal direction it does have a vertebral form but if you look at this you'll notice it's kind of round shaped and this is one way you could you could distinguish the thoracic vertebrae from basically the lumbar vertebrae and another thing especially if you're looking at it from a superior position is you'll notice that the verbal body kind of looks like shape of a heart and since the heart actually is in the thoracic cavity then that is another way that you can remember that this vertebrae is a thoracic vertebrae um then we have over here a lumbar vertebrae and one of the things you'll notice is it has a very wide verbal body do you can you guess why it would have a wide vertebral body that's right because of the weight increase weight that it has to basically it has on it it has similar features as other vertebrae has your transverse processes it has the lamina the spinous processes um and but if you look at the shape of the verbal foramen then you'll notice that it's triangular shaped and so that's one way that you can distinguish this from say a thoracic vertebrae and if you kind of look at this actually from above it almost the body almost looks like a kidney being and uh the kidneys if you know where the kidneys are they are actually in the lumbar area so that might be another way to help you remember that the other thing I like to think about is it it reminds me of a moose's horns if you kind of look at it from the side and it has these processes kind of sticking up there and then out so it always reminds me of those big moose that you would see um continuing on down past the lumbar you have the sacrum now the sacrum actually is considered to be five fused vertebrae it is going to interact with the pelvis okay to form what's called the sacroiliac joint the main body of the sacrum is right here and you'll notice are these tiny little holes in the sacrum called the sacral foramina and these are going to contain basically some nerves and then at the very tip is uh the very end of the vertebrae is the coccyx uh sometimes uh it's considered uh like a tail like structure oops uh tail like structure and it's about three to four fused vertebrae and that is basically an overview of the vertebral column