Talk:Anatomical terms of ___location
I don't think the section on "Usage in Human Anatomy is correct. Generally, in medical imaging, the z-axis points towards the patient's feet, the y-axis towards the ceiling, and the x-axis towards the patient's left side when they are on their back.
So transverse is in the xy plane, coronal in zx, and sagittal in zy.
64.42.209.81 21:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
The article says:
- - Coronal = YZ
- - Transverse = XY
- - Sagittal = XZ
You say:
- - Coronal = XZ
- - Transverse = XY
- - Sagittal = YZ
So you think that Coronal and Sagittal in the article should be the other way around. Well I say:
- - Coronal = XY
- - Transverse = XZ
- - Sagittal = YZ
So that means that I think the article has all of them incorrect and that you have Coronal and Transverse incorrect.
I'll explain why I think this. Each plane has a corresponding axis. This means that within a specific plane, motion will occur around a specific axis. They are as follows:
- - Motion in the Coronal Plane occurs around the Sagittal Axis.
- - Motion in the Transverse Plane occurs around the Longitudinal Axis.
- - Motion in the Sagittal Plane occurs around the Lateral Axis.
Let me clarify the axes.
- - Lateral Axis runs horizontally (X)
- - Longitudinal Axis runs vertically (Y)
- - Sagittal Axis runs anteroposterially (Z)
Because you can give a coordinate to each axis, it can make it easier to remember which coordinates apply to planes. For instance:
- - Motion in the Coronal Plane (XY) occurs around the Sagittal Axis (Z).
- - Motion in the Transverse Plane (XZ) occurs around the Longitudinal Axis (Y).
- - Motion in the Sagittal Plane (YZ) occurs around the Lateral Axis (X).
See how each plane has the 2 coordinates that its axis does not have? In turn, each axis has the corrdinate that its plane does not have. So I'll go ahead and fix the article. If anyone disagrees with me, pelase give an explanation as to why you disagree. Jamesters 04:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
How confusing! Each proposed labelling of the planes as X-Y or whatever is correct -- in the appropriate frame of reference. It's just that there's much disagreement about which frame of reference is appropriate; in fact, there are two distinct disagreements about that. Can you say NPOV? Or, for that matter, relativity? :-) Knew ya could.
Here are a number of reference frames, all of which have been used either in the article or in this discussion:
- As of 7-Dec-2006, the article says: "One imagines a human in the anatomical position [i.e. standing], and ... the X-axis going left to right, the Y-axis passing up and down, and the Z-axis going front and back."
- But the first poster above, 64.42.209.81, says "Generally, in medical imaging, the z-axis points towards the patient's feet, the y-axis towards the ceiling, ...", which, to make sense, must view the patient as lying down (presumably, ready to be imaged)
- The Visible Human Project puts the subject in anatomical position, but calls the vertical axis "Z" and the dorsal/ventral axis "Y". References:
- Go to the Project's Slice, Surface, and Animation extraction page, wait for the Java applet to load, and look at the axes depicted near the top-left corner of its window, or
- Look at the screen snap of that applet in section 2.2 of http://diwww.epfl.ch/w3lsp/publications/gigaserver/tvhswsafa.pdf
- According to http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/xMartialArts/FightingDynamics.htm, Tait-Bryan angles even disagree with all the others about the X axis! (This frame is arguably relevant because, for a long time, the article used it; but all vestiges of that have since been edited away.)
Note that the article itself is inconsistent. Although it says it's using the frame of reference that I quoted above in (1), the labelling it gives is actually using the frame of reference from (3).
So we have disagreements about how to label the axes in space, and about how the subject should be oriented. The only thing everyone so far seems to agree on is how the coronal, sagittal, and transverse planes divide the human body.
Here's a table summarizing the frames of reference that have been mentioned, and the plane labellings they imply.
| Article (7-Dec-2006) | First poster above | Visible Human Project | Tait-Bryan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| left/right axis (i.e. subject's left/right) | X | X | X | Y |
| up/down axis (with respect to gravity, which might not be cranial/caudal) | Y | Y | Z | Z |
| front/back axis (dorsal/ventral, if standing; cranial/caudal, if lying down) | Z | Z | Y | X |
| subject's orientation | standing | lying | standing | standing |
| transverse plane | X-Z | X-Y | X-Y | X-Y |
| coronal plane | X-Y | X-Z | X-Z | Y-Z |
| sagittal plane | Y-Z | Y-Z | Y-Z | X-Z |
The only solution to this particular little edit war, ISTM, is thus to NPOVify the whole thing. The only reasons I'm writing this long, shamelessly POV essay instead of doing it myself are (a) to justify my assertion that it's an edit war, and (b) that I know nothing at all about the article's subject matter, and so have no clue which reference frames are appropriate to include in such an NPOV version, and which are irrelevant, or even totally bogus. Erics 08:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
An English question:
- a cow's udder is at the ventral side
or
- a cow's udder is on the ventral side
AxelBoldt 23:16 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)
I'm not 100% sure but would go for "on". I think that "at the side" of something tends to suggest that it is next to it but less involved - The National Film Theatre stands at the side of the Queen Elizabeth Hall" (hmmm maybe not even a good example!) - but "on" I think suggests that it is actually attached or touching it. Or something. Oh dear, I was trying to help, now I've just confused myself. :( Try "on", I really think that's it ... Nevilley 23:22 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)
On - (In this case). But English is a funny language. Mintguy
Agreed, for the reason Nevilley describes. Your heart is on your left side, but the dog in the picture might be walking at your left side. :-) Erics 08:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Ummm, actually it'd be logical to say your heart was in your left side, but one doesn't; the correct idiom is on. As Mintguy says, English is odd that way. There's even regional variation -- folks in England tend to say a store is in such-and-such a street, while we North Americans say it's on. Each usage sounds weird to the other group. Erics 08:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
There is a nice new article anatomical position which deals specifically with terms in human anatomy. I tried merging it into this article but it didn´t work well. It might be best to rewrite some of this article here to remove references to human anatomy and make it more general, so that the specific details of human antomical terms can all go to the other one. Does that make sense? Kosebamse 04:23 25 May 2003 (UTC)
Both articles are doing well now, this one giving the general terminology and the other one some specific details. However, I´m still unhappy with the planes section, as it is the only one that deals specifically with human anatomy. It would be better if it were rewritten to become more universal, but unfortunately I am not too familiar with the subject where other living things are concerned. Perhaps a biologist or veterinarian could help? Kosebamse 09:13 26 May 2003 (UTC)
Why direct lateral to this page? This seems to happen a lot on Wikipedia-direct a specific thing to a general topic. Lateral has more than one meaning; lateral thought for example. -Adrian
Hi Adrian,
It depends on the specific usage of the word "lateral". If an article discusses "lateral thought", then the term isn't being used in an anatomical sense, so it shouldn't really be linked to this page. However, in medical and veterinary science, these terms are used very heavily and they have specific meanings (and even particular nuances which you won't find discussed in very many textbooks! :-). They help to disambiguate discussions in these fields, where phrases like "on top of", "in front of", etc., are easy to mis-interpret.
So, in medical and veterinary fields, where these terms have extremely specific meanings, they're can be linked to this page to explain those meanings. Do you have a link to the offending article? You can change it if you don't think the link is appropriate...
Jonathan Merritt 1 September 2003
There's now a nice kangaroo picture here to demonstrate graphically what each anatomical term is but is the picture released for use under or still copyrighted? Alex.tan 09:38, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The following was recently added:
- The terms anterior and posterior should not be used when refering to most animals however, and are particularly incorrect for the quadrupeds (animals which commonly use all four legs for locomotion).
A Google search for "animal anterior site:.edu" gives over 26,000 hits, and already among the first ten are several that define "anterior end of an animal is the head end." It may be ok to say that in Wikipedia we shouldn't use the terms in that way, but we certainly have to explain how everybody else uses them.
- In the limbs, the terms cranial and caudal are used in the region proximal to the carpus (the "wrist", in the forelimb) and the tarsus (the "ankle" in the hindlimb). Distal to the carpal joint, the forward direction in animals and the top of the palm region in humans is referred to as dorsal, while the rearward direction is referred to as palmar. Distal to the tarsal joint, the forward direction in animals, and the top of the foot in humans, is referred to as dorsal, while the rearward direction is referred to as plantar.
I cannot make heads and tails of this paragraph. Maybe it can be explained better. AxelBoldt 20:18, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- I tried to clear it up a little. --dcf 14:16, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)
---
Super- Supero- Supra-
- ~~\Bird/~~
I propose moving the 'relative motions' section off into an article by itself. Many of the anatomically-related articles make free use of movement terminology; I think it would be more intuitive for someone who wanted to know what the hell dorsiflexion was to click on a 'Anatomical terms of motion' link for clarification. --dcf 14:16, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)
- As I threatened almost 2 years ago, I am moving the 'relative motions' section off into an article by itself: Anatomical terms of motion. --Dcfleck 03:12, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
- Alright, but it is then your duty to fix ALL of the links that should go to that article, not to anatomical terms of ___location. And you should also move the relevant external links. ---Marcus- 13:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
- In progress. --Dcfleck 13:49, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Use of the word "posterior"
I am familiar with the common usage of the word "posterior" to refer to the buttocks. It is probably appropriate to mention this. However, I do not think that spanking is an appropriate example of its usage, in an article on anatomical terms. I think this reference should be removed.Preacherdoc 13:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
- I agree. Thank you for removing it. --Michael Geary 03:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Merging
A better-written and more scholarly article on the same topic exists at Human anatomical terms, but it also covers material Anatomical terms of motion. In my opinion, the best parts of this article and Anatomical terms of motion ought to be merged into Human anatomical terms. Sarah crane 22:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
- Sarah, many thanks for looking at these articles. You suggest that some of the three articles Anatomical terms of ___location, Anatomical terms of motion and Human anatomical terms should perhaps be merged. I have been actively involved with the first (which indeed was itself merged recently), and aware of the second, but did not know about the third until you suggested the merge.
- In fact, User:Beth ohara's article (Human anatomical terms) is extremely recent. You suggest that it might be the "better written and more scholarly", but I am not certain this is the case. Beth's article as it stands contains several inaccurate points, and several more which are slightly incorrect. It (currently) bears the hallmarks of "single author syndrome". That said, most of what she writes is valuable and valid. The other articles may be less readable, but they are factually excellent.
- My problem with anatomy is that my undergraduate soul is that of an anatomist (and comparative vertebrate anatomist), yet my current job is that of a clinician. Unfortunately, clinical terms of anatomy (used routinely by doctors in hospitals and clinics) often differ quite markedly from those of the strict anatomical text.
- I would like to disagree to the proposal of merging the articles. We need two different articles - one to cater for the world of animals and one for human, the users and context of these two groups are often different. I am authoring an article on Snake scales and it would be counter-intuitive to link these terms to the human context rateher than an animal context. I think there is adequate justification for letting two articles remain separate. However, they should cross-link appropriately and when read together should not be ambiguous or contradictory. Regards, AshLin 05:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
- I am certain that Beth's article adds much to the (human/clinical) detail which I had attempted to put into the Anatomical terms of ___location article (with little success). I would have preferred that Beth had added her information to the two existing articles rather than starting from scratch.
- Any merging of articles would need to take into account the requirement of an article to be useful for human anatomy, as well as comparative anatomy (see skull, especially its recent evolution, for a good example of how an article which was previously all human-oriented, has been (rightly) changed to include other species). Further, incorporation of clinical terms as well as dry anatomical terms would be helpful.
- I think leaving the two earlier articles as they are and splitting Beth's article between them would be my preferred solution. (As of now, Beth's article is linked from fewer pages than the others). Perhaps better still would be to merge them all into one super "Anatomical terms" article.
- I have cross-posted this to the talk page on Anatomical terms of ___location, and onto Beth's talk pages. I think there is plenty of good material here, and the potential for making things a lot better.
- Best wishes, Preacherdoc 20:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Don't merge Two completely different topics. Although an understanding of Quadraped anatomical terms (i.e. Dorsal Surface, Dorsal Bundal, etc) is useful for understanding human anatomical terms it becoms messy when trying to combine them into the same article (i.e rostral). --134.36.125.179 01:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Don't merge. As some have already pointed out, the terms used in zoology and in medicine differ considerably, and often confusingly. I think this article, if cleaned up, could be quite valuable in pointing out the similarities, differences and points of confusion, though, and not just concentrating on the zoological. In fact, I've been considering taking on part of that task myself, and spent a day this weekend designing a couple of what I think would be better illustrations for the (vertebrate) animal part. Hopefully, I'll get some invertebrate illustrations done in the next couple of days, and get them posted on the Commons for all to see before inserting them. What I really need is an appropriate, modifiable, photo of (a) human(s) (preferably one male and one female) in the upright anatomical position. Better still, several - full front, full back, full side and one at about a 30° angle. Then I could add in a bit about surface anatomical subdivisions, reference points, markers and so on. Any photographers/volunteers? Esseh 07:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Missing details
So now we have plenty of articles about these terms, but none seem to address the interesting special cases.
- How are the terms ventral and dorsal used in the human head?
- How are the terms ventral and dorsal used in the human penis?
Human vs Animal (four-legged)
The article should be separated into a anatomical locations on humans, and one for locations on animals. They just don't seem to mix, or at least it makes things confuseing. At minimum the top picture should have a human counterpart. Electron9 23:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
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Reworking
Hi all. I must admit to being rather disappointed with this page. I find it lacking in a lot of information (especially synonyms), and very unclear and confusing in much of the information it does present. Particularly, I find it does not give clear guidelines or explanations on how general vertebrate terms of ___location relate to those in used in a medical context. Worst of all (in my mind), the article, as it stands, does not include terms of ___location for any invertebrate animal.
I am willing to begin an extensive re-write of the article, and have prepared several images to help illustrate, compare, and contrast terms of direction and ___location in invertebrates, and vertebrates including humans. These can be viewed on the Commons under my gallery (same username). For basic vertebrate, the files are: (1) Anatomical_Directions_and_Axes.JPG, and (2) Planes_of_Section.JPG. For invertebrates. I would like to use (1) Radiate_Oral-aboral_Axes.JPG, (2) Radiate_Radial_Axes.JPG, and (3) Radiate_Planes.JPG. (I haven't put links here to save space, and my time in getting them properly formatted. Copy/search of the image titles should get you there, or check my gallery. I will certainly format them in the article.) I am still hunting for comparable human photos to add to the human section, for comparison, and any help would be appreciated. I also want to add a Table to show comparative terms for different groups. If I don't hear from anyone by 07 April, 2007, I will assume consensus, and begin editing. (The editing may take a while - I'm fairly new at this - so bear with me...) Comments, either before or after I begin, are welcome, of course. If I start too soon, just revert what I did (and please give me a reason why!). Thanks to all. Esseh 04:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Hello again everyone. As you may or may not have noticed, after some preparation (including preparing some new images, creating tables and looking up the appropriate refs), and having heard no cries of anguish to the contrary, I have begun a major re-write of this article. Please bear with me for a few days - it may take some time to complete.
In the meantime, I am still desparately seeking some appropriate photographs for the human anatomy section. Yes, I would prefer GFDL photographs to diagrams. Preferably both male and female, in standard anatomical position, one of each in full anterior and posterior views, and at about a 30o angle to the camera. They'd need to be as high def as possible (so I can crop out various bits to focus on them), against a contrasting or neutral background. Any photographically-inclined volunteers? Cheers, all, and bear with me. Esseh 11:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- Good work! Something I noticed, and tried (but failed) to fix - there appears to be a large block of text that appears to the right of Table 1, rendering it quite unreadable (like a long, skinny column). I'm not sure why it's doing it, right now it starts at the "Directions in Human Anatomy" heading. WLU 15:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi WLU, and thanks. Actually, I will be replacing the "Directions in Human Anatomy" section at some point, as well. I included the table as a quick-ref/disambiguation sort of thing. Sorry it looks funny to you. Could it be a difference in your browser? Right now the table is floating, and left-aligned, so text will flow down the right. Maybe it'd look better if I right aligned it. Let me try that now, and let me know what you think... Esseh 15:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- Done. Actually, that looks worse to me. Somehow, there appears to be no space between the text and the table. Very annoying! Let me know what you think. Esseh 15:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- The table occupies the width of my browser window (currently using IE, I'll try to remember to have a look at it on Safari tonight). Right now the table is actually covering up a bunch of text. For me, the table is sufficiently large as to fill the screen, so having text flow around the table makes it impossible for me to read. I'd just put the text below the table itself. If you right-aligned it, I'd have the same problem but on the opposite side. I blame microsoft. WLU 16:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmmmm... Thanks. I'm using Netscape 8.1, but I think it's running a Foxfire shell. The text doesn't run into the table, but does run right up to the edge. Annoying and unesthetic, but not fatal. I agree with your assessment of microsoft - may the fleas of a thousand camels infest Bill Gates' armpits! (And his legions of fawning acolytes, too!) I use a PC, but whenever and wherever I can avoid it, I will use someting (anything) other than Microbloat software. OK... tirade over. Let me know how it looks with Safari. And thanks again... Esseh 17:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- I dunno what you did, but it looks fine now. 'Course, I'm on a different computer now, using safari. WLU 00:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Honest, I changed nothing - it's still left aligned. I'm going to right-align it now, and we'll see how it goes. Thanks again. More text to follow tomorrow... I hope. Esseh 02:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry, got my reft and light bass-ackwards. My old sergeant would be disappointed... but not surprised.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Esseh (talk • contribs) 02:08, 17 April 2007 (UTC).