Question #518

The mandibular nerve is the last branch of the trigeminal nerve and the tickest? It has both sensory and motor components and takes a short intracranial course from the trigeminal ganglion in Meckel’s cave to exit the skull through the foramen ovale.

It emerges in the infratemporal fossa where it gives off two small branches, the meningeal (or nervus spinosus) and the nerve to medial pterygoid, before dividing into anterior and posterior divisions.

The posterior division gives the auriculotemporal nerve, the inferior alveolar nerve and the lingual nerve.

The anterior division gives the buccal nerve and motor branches to the pterygoids, temporalis and masseter.

Two branches of the mandibular nerve are associated with ganglia:

• The auriculotemporal picks up post-ganglionic parasympathetic fibres from the otic ganglion and carries them to the parotid gland.
• The lingual nerve picks up post-ganglionic parasympathetic fibres from the submandibular ganglion and carries them to the submandibular and sublingual glands.

As its alternative name suggests, the meningeal branch passes through the foramen spinosum.

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