• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.326-334
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• 2011

The aim of the study was to investigate the thickness of deep neck muscles during neck endurance tests using ultrasonography images to assess muscle sizes in persons with or without neck pain experience. Sixty-five university students volunteered for the study. The thicknesses of longus colli, longus capitis, semispinalis and cervical multifidus were assessed bilaterally using diagnostic ultrasound equipment during each endurance test. Participants were divided into two groups based on their Neck Pain(NP) experience; 45 subjects of those had no experience of NP (Group1) whereas 20 subjects of those reported NP experience sometime in their lives (Group2). Endurance time of both neck flexion and extension tests in Group1 showed significantly longer than Group's (p<0.01). The thicknesses of deep neck flexors and extensors were observed smallest at the terminal of endurance tests in general. Only left longus colli was found to be significantly smaller at rest in subjects of Group2 than Group 1's (P=0.02). The size difference between at contraction and the terminal of right longus capitis was observed bigger in subjects of group1 than subjects in group2. Future studies are needed to conduct with clinical subjects to assess contraction patterns of neck muscles.