Anatomy study note · Head and neck

Facial nerve

The seventh cranial nerve, with a motor root and a sensory root (nervus intermedius). It controls facial expression, salivation and lacrimation and carries taste from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue.

Key points

• CN VII: facial expression, taste (anterior 2/3), lacrimal + submandibular + sublingual glands, stapedius.
• Internal acoustic meatus → facial canal → stylomastoid foramen → parotid.
• 5 branches: temporal, zygomatic, buccal, mandibular, cervical.
• LMN lesion = whole half face; UMN lesion = lower face only.
• VII: nerve of the 2nd arch.
• Motor nuclei: basal lamina. Sensory nuclei: alar lamina.
• VII → stapedius.
• Nerve: epineurium → perineurium (blood–nerve barrier) → endoneurium.

The full note in the atlas also covers

Course · Branches · Histology · Development · Clinical notes

Sign in free to see it on the 3D model, read the full note and practise questions on it.

Written from

• Snell’s Clinical Anatomy by Regions, 10th ed., ch. 12, PDF pp. 1515, 1538, 1671–1675, 1685–1686
• Inderbir Singh’s Human Embryology, ch. 17, PDF pp. 312, 318; ch. 9, PDF pp. 120, 125; ch. 11, PDF p. 150
• BRS Cell Biology & Histology, 7th ed., ch. 9, PDF pp. 163–166, 166, 171–172; ch. 21, PDF p. 390

More from the head and neck

• Frontal bone
• Frontal lobe
• Genioglossus
• Geniohyoid
• Glossopharyngeal nerve
• Hippocampus
• Hyoglossus
• Hyoid bone
• Hypoglossal nerve
• Hypothalamus
• Inferior oblique
• Inferior rectus

Privacy policy · Designed by DATXOC LLC.