Vocal-tract anatomy: Data from the Visible Human Project

Viewing the human body as a series of sections or slices has become very familiar from computer tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.
The Visible Human Project is unique for being based not on a specific imaging technique but on anatomical photos made of a large number of very thin slices from head to toe of the body of an executed murderer (after death the body was frozen and then sectioned).
The basic visible human data is a series of axial (transversal) slices at 1 mm intervals, but it has been rearranged so that it can also be viewed as a series of sagittal or coronal slices.
As an aid to orientation, in each of the three movies (axial, sagittal, coronal views) the position of each slice is cross-referenced to a representative slice from the other two views.

A female body with an even higher spatial resolution is now also available.
This has been the subject of a fair amount of research into the basic anatomy of the tongue muscles.
Click here for more information on the Visible Human Project.

1. Axial


2. Sagittal


3. Coronal