[1] The muscle's anterior attachment is onto the superior border of the arch of the cricoid cartilage.

[1] Its posterior attachment is onto the anterior aspect of the muscular process of the ipsilateral arytenoid cartilage.

[2] The muscle receives motor innervation from (branches of the anterior terminal division of) the recurrent laryngeal nerve[3] (which is in turn a branch of a vagus nerve (CN X)).

The muscle rotates the arytenoid cartilage medially (it thus acts as antagonist to the posterior cricoarytenoid muscle which rotates the cartilage laterally).

[citation needed] It also shortens and slackens the vocal cords.