I was excited to find out today that my left arm ... *drumroll*... is missing the palmaris longus muscle!
Up until today, I had been identifying anatomy on my right arm (since our books display that side as an example).. but today, as I ran my right finger over my left wrist, moving from the thumb side toward the pinky, I felt each structure in turn.. abductor pollicis longus, radial artery, flexor pollicis radialis, median nerve, palmaris longus.... *feels again for palmaris longus*... *jabs at place where palmaris longus is supposed to be*...
Whoa, I don't have one!
Now, if you ever meet someone here in the Harvard MSTP, you can check whether it's me by looking for the absence of the palmaris longus on my left side. :)
5 comments:
i'd guess it's an atrophe
our professor says some people just genetically don't have it (it'd be hard to atrophe unless i severed that particular strand of nerve, or never ever flex my wrist). one of our profs was showing us that she didn't have one.. although it didn't occur to me to check on myself at the moment. haha.
I think it's something like 10% of people don't have it on either arm, and it's a developmental thing, not from atrophy.
In Caucasians: 16% unilateral absence, 9% bilateral absence. Not atrophy. Thompson NW, Mockford BJ, Cran GW (May 2001). "Absence of the palmaris longus muscle: a population study.". Ulster Medical Journal 70 (1): 22–4
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