Every time you select a structure a wealth of information becomes available. Accompanying each selected structure is comprehensive text, which includes everything from a description to the etymology for the term. Also, every selected structure in anatomica3D has an associated links window with a list of every visual reference that contains that selected structure. There are more than a thousand pages of text included in just the musculoskeletal system. The level and detail of the text changes when you select beginner, intermediate, or advanced from the level menu. More detail is listed below:

 

Muscle Text includes: Group, Origin, Insertion, Action, Nerve supply, Blood supply, Action (you can selectively test yourself on all of these in the quizzing), Muscle parts, Latin Muscle parts, Latin name, and Etymology.

Bone text includes: Type, Description, Etymology, Articulations, Osiffication,Landmarks, Muscle Attachments, each landmark on the bone also has it's own text and etymology.

Text is also included for ligaments, joints and other structures and groups of structures in the program.

A comprehensive search function allows you to do a search on any term in the text. For example: Let’s say you are looking at the biceps brachii muscle. The text associated with that muscle says it’s origin is on the coracoid process of the scapula. By right clicking and dragging the mouse over coracoid process you can do a keyword or full text search for the coracoid process. A keyword search allows you to go directly to the coracoid process in the program where you can read about it, see different views of it labeled and hear it’s pronunciation. If you do a full text search on coracoid process, you can not only pull up the coracoid process, but you can access all the other muscles and ligaments that attach to it from the list generated by your search.

Learning muscles by grouping can be very helpful and this is why our muscles are grouped into compartments by embryological origin. The muscles in these groups often share common actions, innervations, and blood supply, learning the muscles by groups make these things much easier to remember. This pattern of learning is consistent throughout the program. For example, the text below is a small excerpt from the text of the muscles of the anterior comparment of the leg:

“The anterior compartment muscles of the leg consists of four muscles, all of which dorsal flex the ankle joint and are innervated by the deep fibular nerve from the posterior division of the sacral plexus. The anterior tibial artery is their common source of blood supply.”

When you learn the actions, nerve supply, and blood supply of the group you know what they are for each individual muscle. This simplifies memorization and gives you a solid construct for learning anatomy. Once you have this down you can dissect down to the individual muscles and study them.

Etymology is an important tool for learning anatomy and it is present for every structure. The etymology is a description of the origin of the anatomical term. This is a great help in memorizing names. For example here is an excerpt from the etymology of the scapula:

”The term scapula, also used in early texts, became firmly established in the nomenclature around 1640 and probably derives from the Greek term scapter for a broad flat digging instrument resembling a spade or trowel.”

You can easily relate the scapula to this description and it puts an image in your head to relate to.