MRI analysis of muscle/fat index of the superficial and deep neck muscles in an asymptomatic cohort

All muscles of the neck have a role in motion and postural control of the cervical region. The aim of this study was to investigate the difference in muscle/fat index between (1) cervical flexors and extensors and (2) deep and superficial neck muscles. Twenty-six healthy subjects participated in the study. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to quantify muscle fat indices in different cervical flexor and extensor muscles at the C4–C5 level. Overall, the ventral muscles had a significantly lower fat content compared with the dorsal muscles (P ≤ 0.001). For the cervical extensors, significant differences between the muscle/fat index of the deep and superficial muscles were found (P ≤ 0.001). For the cervical flexors, there were no significant differences between the different muscles. The higher fat content in the dorsal muscles can be explained by a discrepancy in function between the spine extensors and flexors, reflected in a different muscle fiber distribution. The rather small differences between superficial and deep neck muscles are in line with recent findings that have demonstrated that both muscles groups exhibit phasic activity during isometric muscles contractions and the presumption that there is no difference in fiber type distribution between superficial and deep neck muscles.