Anatomy study note · Head and neck

Mandibular nerve

The third division of the trigeminal nerve (V3), both sensory and motor; it supplies the muscles of mastication, the lower teeth, tongue (general sensation), lower face and part of the ear.

Key points

• V3: mixed; foramen ovale.
• Motor: masseter, temporalis, pterygoids, mylohyoid, anterior digastric, tensor veli palatini, tensor tympani.
• Buccal nerve = sensory (buccinator is VII).
• Lingual nerve + chorda tympani (taste); inferior alveolar → mental nerve.
• V3: nerve of the 1st arch.
• Motor nuclei: basal lamina. Sensory nuclei: alar lamina.
• Nerve: epineurium → perineurium (blood–nerve barrier) → endoneurium.
• Cut nerve: Wallerian degeneration; regrows 0.5–3 mm/day.

The full note in the atlas also covers

Course · Branches · Histology · Development · Clinical notes

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Written from

• Snell’s Clinical Anatomy by Regions, 10th ed., ch. 12, PDF pp. 1611, 1669–1671
• Inderbir Singh’s Human Embryology, ch. 17, PDF pp. 312, 318; ch. 9, PDF p. 125; ch. 12, PDF p. 170
• BRS Cell Biology & Histology, 7th ed., ch. 9, PDF pp. 163–166, 166, 171–172

More from the head and neck

• Masseter
• Maxilla
• Maxillary artery
• Maxillary nerve
• Medial pterygoid
• Medial rectus
• Medulla oblongata
• Midbrain
• Middle cerebral artery
• Muscles of facial expression
• Musculus uvulae
• Mylohyoid

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