It is the area of the body that protects and protects internal organs such as the heart and lungs, as well as important blood vessels that can cause bleeding if they are injured or perforated. The ribs are the bony pieces that make it up and give it the shape it has, similar to that of a pyramid. It has some intercostal muscles, which are rooted in its walls. Its main mission is, as mentioned above, to protect the organs that are inside it and make them less likely to suffer great damage, however, on some occasions this can be reversed and, when suffering a contusion, the ribs can break and pierce the tissues it should protect.
They have the power to be expandable, a property that gives them the ability to allow breathing; All this is due to the fact that the lungs expand and contract when inhaling and exhaling, respectively, the air, so that it can reach all its corners. The joints are the components that are behind the expansion process, having little mobility if they work by themselves, but achieving that the thorax expands its size if they are subjected to joint movements; The classification under which they are governed dictates that there are three types of thoracic joints, and these are: costo-sternal, costovertebral and sternoclavicular.
Each of the joints can perform a certain type of movement, such as the costo-sternal joints, which can only perform light rotational movements, as well as the costovertebral joints, which can only rotate about the axis of their center.
