Buccinator + gubernaculum = 'Gubernator'

When loosing your sanity trying to memorize the names for every part of the body, it is essential to make fun of and share the funny-sounding anatomy words. I decided to through caution to the wind and publicly exhibit my nerdiness by sharing some of the coolest anatomy words with you all on my blog:

Second coolest anatomy word: Buccinator (pronounced bussinator) it is best if you say it with an Arnold Swarchenegger type accent.

(Image from wikipedia)
The buccinator is a muscle that forms the walls of your checks. It helps you position your food in your mouth while you eat. Although it helps in mastication (aka 'chewing food'), it is not considered a muscle of mastication, but instead it is considered to be a muscle of facial expression. It is innervated by cranial nerve VII, the facial nerve, which innervates all the other muscles of facial expression. A visual representation of the buccinator muscle is provided above.


The #1 coolest word in anatomy: Gubernaculum

(from a Google image search) The gubernaculum is important embryologically. It helps in the descent of the gonads. Here is a picture of the gubernaculum on the adult testes.

After I decided that the buccinator and the gubernaculum were the two coolest words in anatomy, I started saying them together quickly and came up with a new word: The gubernator. This is a completely made-up word, but I thought it was pretty fun sounding too. Ahhhhhh the things you do to entertain yourself while studying anatomy.

:)