Thigh in Cross Section

00:01 Now let's turn our attention to the posterior aspect of the thigh.

00:05 And before we do that, let's look at the thigh in cross section.

00:09 So what we have here is a cross section through the thigh and we can see the subcutaneous tissue around the edge surrounded by skin.

00:17 And then running through the center, we have the femur.

00:20 What we've done here is we've cut a cross section through the patient's thigh and we're looking at it as if we're standing at the end of their bed.

00:28 So at the top of the screen, we've got the anterior aspect of the bottom, we've got the posterior aspect.

00:33 And we've got actually here, we can see anteriorly around the femur, we have the anterior compartment.

00:39 And in most posteriorly, we'll have the posterior compartment.

00:42 We also within the thigh region have an important compartment which is the medial compartment or the adductor compartment and we'll come to that later on.

00:51 What we have to create these various compartments are a whole series of inter muscular septi.

00:56 So here we can see separating the anterior from the posterior and medial compartments are the lateral and medial femoral intermuscular septi.

01:07 We can see those two running across, the cross section of the thigh here separating the anterior compartment from the posterior and the medial.

01:16 Separating the posterior from the medial compartments is the posterior femoral intermuscular septum.

01:23 So we have these three compartments separated by 3 septi.

01:27 And these are invaginations of that deep fascia that surrounds the thigh to help compartmentalize the muscle.

01:33 It helps to maintain the organization of the muscles and help them stay in position as various forces are exerted on them as they contract and relax.

01:43 Within the anterior compartment of the thigh, we can see a number of muscles and these make up what's known as the extensor compartment.

01:50 The extensor compartment is obviously as its name implies, responsible for extending the leg at the knee joint.

01:59 We also have the nerve supply to this extensor compartment, which is the femoral nerve.

02:05 The posterior compartment or sometimes known as the hamstring muscles are innervated by the tibial nerve, and these are responsible for flexing the knee.

02:14 We then have the medial compartment and as I mentioned, this is sometimes known as the abductor compartment integrated via the obturator nerve, and these help to adduct the leg bring the leg into the midline.