Possible relationship of upper limb arteries, median and brachial to the twelfth meridian of the human upper limb

Dr Li (2021), in relation to the paper published recently in the Journal of Anatomy (Lucas et al., 2020) has suggested that the Ancient Chinese medicine may have added the 12th meridian to the human body based on detection of the pulse on the median artery at the wrist. Brachial artery of the arm and the common interosseous artery of the forearm are derived from the foetal axial artery of the fore-limb. Median artery develops from the common interosseous artery and maintains the main blood supply to the developing hand, initially. Ulnar and radial arteries are terminal branches of the brachial artery (Moore et al., 2020), and as they develop and take over the functions of the median artery, it undergoes gradual regression.