Mnemonic for cervical plexus

 Hello, guys welcome to another blog in this blog I will provide some best mnemonics for remembering the cervical plexus with ease.

first, we should know that the cervical plexus is formed by the four roots mainly the C1, C2, C3, and C4

if you want to watch a video of it from knehub and osmosis to understand it better so click here to watch.

the cervical plexus is formed by the anterior rami of the first four cervical spinal nerves.

now to know about the trick or mnemonic for the cervical plexus we should know about the branches of the cervical plexus, which means it has both sensory or cutaneous and motor branches.

so the mnemonic will be separate for the cutaneous as well as for motor branches.

first of all, let's talk about cutaneous branches;
there are actually four cutaneous branches that supply to different parts as shown below

1. lesser occipital nerve (from C2)
2. great auricular nerve (from C2 and C3)
3. transverse cervicalus nerve (from C2 and C3)
4. supra clavicular nerve (from C3 and C4)

lesser occipital supply to the backside (occipital bone)

great auricular supply the ear pinna mainly

transverse cervicalus supply to the back of the neck transversely

supraclavicular supply to the skin of scapula posteriorly, lateral aspect of deltoid & to the midline of neck.

NOTE; here C1 has no sensory branches

MNEMONIC FOR CUTANEOUS BRANCHES

so to remember the branches use OATS
where 

O is for occipital nerve mean lesser occipital 

A is for articular mean great auricular nerve 

T is for transverse cervicalus

S is for supraclavicular

And to remember  roots simply lesser occipital is from C2, great auricular and transverse is from C2 and C3 and last one supra clavicular is form C3 and C4

now let's talk about the muscular or motor bracnhes;

muscular branches;

1. Anterior vertebral muscles (from C1 to C2)
2. levator scapulae (from C3 and C4
3. trapezius (from C3 and C4)
4. sternocliedomastoid (C2 and C3)

Ansa cervicalis (from C1 to C3)

phrenic nerve (mainly C4 but has a contribution from C3 and C5 too)

MNEMONIC

mnemonic of overall motor branches is MAP

where

M is for muscular branches

A is for ansa cervicalis

P is for phrenic nerve

now note that ansa cervicalis supplies to infra and suprahyoid muscles of the neck but there is an exception with roots 

All the infrahyoid muscles is supplied by C1 to C3 except thyrohyoid which is supplied by c1 only

and only one muscle of suprahyoid muscles that is Geniohyoid muscle is supplied by the C1  of ansa cervicalis

the anterior  vertebral muscles composed of the rectis capatis,longus capitis and longus cervicis

mnemonic for the phrenic nerve are c3, c4, and c5 to keep the diaphragm alive.

i hope these short mnemonics will help you in your studies😊