Neurovasculature of the Anterior Compartment of the Forearm

00:01 So, now, let's have a look at the neurovascular relations of the muscles within the anterior compartment of the forearm.

00:10 So, let's remind ourselves of the muscles very briefly.

00:13 We have the superficial layer, pronator teres, flexi carpi radialis, palmaris longus, and flexor carpi ulnaris.

00:22 We have the flexor retinaculum which runs over these tendons in the distal aspect of the forearm over the wrist. And we also have brachioradialis.

00:31 Now, this is really part of the posterior compartment but we can see it here and it's relevant to include.

00:38 In the middle layer, we have flexor digitorum superficialis.

00:41 And then, in the deep layer, we have those three muscles, flexor digitorum profundus, flexor pollicis longus, and pronator quadratus.

00:51 So, the muscles that are forming the anterior compartment of the forearm.

00:56 We've mentioned these briefly but we can see various arteries that are running down, coming from the brachial artery within the arm.

01:04 The brachial artery we can see here bifurcates within the cubital fossa to form the ulnar artery medially which gives rise to the common interosseous artery.

01:14 The common interosseous artery gives rise to the posterior interosseous artery which passes through the superior aperture within the interosseous membrane.

01:24 And then, the anterior interosseous artery continues down, supplying the deep structures within the anterior compartment of the forearm.

01:32 So, now, let's have a look at the second terminal branch of the brachial artery.

01:37 Here, we can see the radial artery and that's running along the lateral aspect of the forearm.

01:43 And running along the lateral aspect of the forearm, it also gives rise to some important branches that go to supply the hand.

01:49 So, here, we have a branch that goes to form the superficial palmar arch.

01:54 And then, deep to that, we have a second arch which is the deep palmar arch.

01:59 These two branches form an important anastomosis in the hand with the ulnar artery and we'll look at that again when we look at the vasculature around the hand.

02:09 So, now, let's have a look at a number of nerves which supplying the anterior compartment, primarily, of the forearm.

02:17 Here, we've got the ulnar nerve, the median nerve, and the radial nerve.

02:21 These are the three terminal branches that came away from the brachial plexus.

02:26 The ulnar nerve, remember, doesn't pass through the cubital fossa, it passes posteriorly to the epicondyle, the medial epicondyle.

02:33 The median nerve does pass through the cubital fossa and the radial nerve runs more laterally.

02:40 Here, staying with the radial nerve, we can see it gives off a superficial and a deep branch of the radial nerves here. We can see the median nerve is giving off its anterior interosseous nerve and the ulnar nerve is giving rise to the palmar branch here.

02:54 We also have a number of other branches that are coming from the ulna and the median.

02:59 We'll look at these more when we look at the wrist and hand.

03:01 But these are branches that go on to supply the surface of the skin and the musculature around the hand and the wrist joint.

03:07 So, we have things like the dorsal branch of the ulnar nerve and the palmar branch of the median nerve, supplying skin around these regions.