You probably don't give much thought to your neck, unless something goes wrong and you start to feel pain. This underappreciated body part is strong enough to support a heavy weight (your head) yet still allows you to tilt, turn, and nod your head with ease. Most of the time, neck pain doesn't signal a serious medical problem. But it's worth learning about one of the rare exceptions: a tear in one of the arteries of the neck, known as a cervical artery dissection (see "What is a cervical artery