Subscribe To
This Site

ATLANTO-OCCIPITAL JOINT

The Atlanto-Occipital Joint is the first joint in the neck.

The bone that makes up the base of the skull is called the Occiput. If you place your hand on the back of your neck, and slide it up, those first boney protruberances you feel are the occiput.

The first bone in the neck is called the Atlas. It's really just a ring.

So the joint between them of course is called the Atlanto-Occipital joint. It's where the nodding action of the head occurs.

Structurally, it requires some very demanding engineering features. It has to be

Extremely strongly bonded, or else the head would fall off the neck the first time a person experienced some trauma. Not good! This is achieved with very powerful stiff ligaments, and equally strong but flexible muscles.
Here you can see it on an x-ray. Fearfully and wonderfully made!
The spinal cord passes through a hole in the base of the occiput (called the Foramen Magnum), and down through the large hole in the Atlas. This is a cross-sectional view, as seen from below, looking up at the skull. All sorts of interesting structures have to pass through the hole.
Two important arteries wind their way up inside the spine, and find their way through the Foramen Magnum too.

Joints

And lastly, because this region must be fully movable, it has to have a joint. Two, in fact. The joint surfaces are covered with very hard cartilage that fortunately doesn't usually become arthritic. But they can become jammed up, for fixated as we call it. Then the neck becomes very stiff, and headaches start.

A = C0-C1 joint.

In due course, I'll add a page on the muscles of the region. Vitally important they too are in the management of Tension Headaches.

Go from Atlanto-Occipital Joint to Neck Pain treatment.

Monthly Newsletter. Signed up yet?

footer for ATLANTO-OCCIPITAL JOINT page