Skull Base Anatomy and the Twelve Cranial Nerves

🥼 Practice and Clinical
1

Preliminary Learning

What are the bones of the skull? What are the neurocranial bones? What are the viscerocranial bones?

Teaching Content

[[Anterior Cranial Fossa]] (frontal bone + sphenoid bone)
The central crista galli stands up; the cribriform plate has holes through which the olfactory fibers pass

  • Cribriform plate: Olfactory nerve (I)
    • Prone to fracture, cerebrospinal fluid leakage #ENT

[[Middle Cranial Fossa]] (sphenoid bone + temporal bone)
Sphenoid: sitting on the saddle-shaped sella turcica (sphenoidal saddle), the optic nerve canal (optic canal) allows sight of the handsome guy surrounded front and back (anterior clinoid process, posterior clinoid process), so strikingly handsome (superior orbital fissure) that it flashed my phone camera until it broke (foramen lacerum), shocking me so much that my rounded (foramen rotundum) rolled on the ground, in the chaos (foramen ovale) it stabbed into the thorns on the ground (foramen spinosum).

  • Sella turcica:

    • The seat for the pituitary gland
    • Carotid groove (path of the internal carotid artery)

  • Optic canal: Optic nerve (II)

  • Superior orbital fissure: Oculomotor nerve (III), Trochlear nerve (IV), Ophthalmic nerve (branch of the Trigeminal nerve V1), Abducens nerve (VI)

  • Foramen lacerum (sphenoid + temporal + occipital bones)

    • Mainly transmits vessels (internal carotid artery enters from the carotid canal of the temporal bone)
    • Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is prone to invasion here (most nasopharyngeal carcinomas occur on the roof and lateral wall of the nasopharynx, very close to the foramen lacerum) #ENT

  • Foramen rotundum: Maxillary nerve (branch of trigeminal nerve V2)

  • Foramen ovale: Mandibular nerve (branch of trigeminal nerve V3)

  • Foramen spinosum: Mandibular nerve (branch of trigeminal nerve V3)

  • Tegmen tympani (below is the tympanic cavity) #ENT

    • Prone to fracture, cerebrospinal fluid leakage

[[Posterior Cranial Fossa]] (temporal bone + occipital bone)

  • Internal auditory canal: Vestibulocochlear nerve (VIII), Facial nerve (VII)
  • Stylomastoid foramen: Facial nerve (VII)
  • Jugular foramen: Jugular vein, Glossopharyngeal nerve (IX), Vagus nerve (X), Accessory nerve (XI)
  • Hypoglossal canal: Hypoglossal nerve (XII)

Teaching Video

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ix4y1e7zy

Interactive Courseware for This Tutorial

Requires using the Visible Body company’s human anatomy atlas (iOS, visionOS) to open; the software often has promotions, so please be patient.

Skull Bone Breakdown

Skull Base Anatomy and Overview of Twelve Pairs of Cranial Nerves

Anterior Cranial Fossa and Cranial Nerves

Middle Cranial Fossa and Cranial Nerves

Posterior Cranial Fossa and Cranial Nerves

Post-Learning

Review through Aishi Anatomy

References

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the ENT Teaching and Research Office of Dongzhimen Hospital for organizing this event, through which I learned a lot

The structure of the human body always takes the shortest route, nerves are like this, and blood vessels are like this too. Remember the nerves and simultaneously remember the accompanying blood vessels.
— Zhang Mingsheng (Dongzhimen Hospital)