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Hand

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"Hands" redirects here. For other uses, see Hand
(disambiguation) and Hands (disambiguation).

A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered

appendage located at the end of the forearm
or forelimb of primates such as humans,
chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few
other vertebrates such as the koala (which has
two opposable thumbs on each "hand" and
fingerprints extremely similar to human
fingerprints) are often described as having
"hands" instead of paws on their front limbs.
The raccoon is usually described as having
"hands" though opposable thumbs are
lacking.[1]

Hand

Human right hand

X-ray of human hand

Details

Vein dorsal venous network

of hand

Nerve Ulnar, median, radial

nerves

Identifiers

Latin Manus

MeSH D006225

TA A01.1.00.025

FMA 9712

Anatomical terminology
[edit on Wikidata]

Some evolutionary anatomists use the term

hand to refer to the appendage of digits on the
forelimb more generally — for example, in the
context of whether the three digits of the bird
hand involved the same homologous loss of
two digits as in the dinosaur hand.[2]

The human hand normally has five digits: four

fingers plus one thumb;[3][4] these are often
referred to collectively as five fingers, however,
whereby the thumb is included as one of the
fingers.[3][5][6] It has 27 bones, not including
the sesamoid bone, the number of which varies
between people,[7] 14 of which are the
phalanges (proximal, intermediate and distal)
of the fingers and thumb. The metacarpal
bones connect the fingers and the carpal
bones of the wrist. Each human hand has five
metacarpals[8] and eight carpal bones.

Fingers contain some of the densest areas of

nerve endings in the body, and are the richest
source of tactile feedback. They also have the
greatest positioning capability of the body;
thus, the sense of touch is intimately
associated with hands. Like other paired
organs (eyes, feet, legs) each hand is
dominantly controlled by the opposing brain
hemisphere, so that handedness—the
preferred hand choice for single-handed
activities such as writing with a pencil, reflects
individual brain functioning.

Among humans, the hands play an important

function in body language and sign language.
Likewise, the ten digits of two hands and the
twelve phalanges of four fingers (touchable by
the thumb) have given rise to number systems
and calculation techniques.

Structure

Clinical significance

Evolution

Additional images

See also

References

External links

Last edited 2 days ago by Materialscien…

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