Zsoldos, Rebeka
- Department of Biosystems and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- University of Queensland
Abstract
The influence of soft tissue structures, including ligaments spanning one or more intervertebral junctions and the nuchal ligament, on motion of the equine cervical joints remains unclear. The present study addressed this using four post-mortem horse specimens extending from head to withers with all ligaments intact. Three-dimensional kinematics was obtained from markers on the head and bone-anchored markers on each cervical and the first thoracic vertebra during rotation, lateral bending, flexion and extension of the whole head, and neck segment. Yaw, pitch, and roll angles in 8 cervical joints (total 32) were calculated. Flexion and extension were expressed mainly as pitch in 27 and 22 joints, respectively. Rotation appeared as predominantly roll in 13 joints, whereas lateral bending was represented as predominantly yaw in 1 and as roll or pitch in all other joints. Significant correlations between yaw, pitch, and roll were observed at individual cervical joints in 97% of all measurements, with the atlanto-occipital joint showing complete (100%) correlation. Most non-significant correlations occurred at the C5-C6 joint, while C6-C7 exhibited significantly lower correlation coefficients compared to other levels. The overall movement of the head and neck is not replicated at individual cervical joint levels and should be considered when evaluating equine necks in vivo.
Keywords
equine; cervical; spine; kinematics; redundancy; vertebral motion; yaw; pitch; roll
Published in
Animals
2025, volume: 15, number: 15, article number: 2259
Publisher: MDPI
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Medical Bioscience
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15152259
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/143467