Browse the corpus

The facial nerve is the seventh cranial nerve (CN VII). This nerve carries visceral and branchial motor signals as well as general and special sensory signals. It innervates the muscles of facial expression while supplying parasympathetic innervation to the mucous membranes of the nasopharynx, hard and soft palate, and the lacrimal, submandibular, and sublingual glands. Additionally, the facial nerve relays the sensation of taste from the anterior portion of the tongue and general sensation from the skin of the concha of the auricle and a small area behind the ear. The branchial motor fibers constitute the largest fibers of the facial nerve.[1] The chorda tympani branches off of the facial nerve, just superior to the stylomastoid foramen. After branching off the seventh cranial nerve, the facial nerve, the chorda tympani, pierces the tympanic cavity and enters the posterior canaliculus. It then descends close to the spine of the sphenoid bone and merges with a branch of the mandibular nerve, the lingual nerve.[2] See Image. Chorda Tympani.