Face (Sensory)

The face's sensory nerves descend from both the facial nerves and the trigeminal nerves. The facial nerves are the seventh pair of cranial nerves. Their sensory branches are associated with taste receptors on the front two-thirds of the tongue. Other fibers function involuntarily by stimulating the tear gland and some saliva glands (submandibular, sublingual, and parotid salivary glands). The facial nerves from the brow to the throat under the chin include: (1) the temporal nerve, (2) the...

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Full Face (Sensory) Description

[Continued from above] . . . zygomatic nerve, (3) the buccal nerve, (4) the facial nerve, (4) the posterior auricular nerve, (5) mandibular nerve, and (6) the cervical nerve. The trigeminal sensory nerves include three large branches, the ophthalmic, maxillary, and mandibular divisions. The ophthalmic division consists of sensory fibers that bring impulses to the brain from the surface of the eye, the tear gland (the lacrimal branch), and the skin on the front scalp, forehead, and upper eyelid. The fibers of the maxillary division (including the infraorbital nerve, which branches into a superior alveolar nerve) carry sensory impulses from the upper teeth, upper gum, and upper lip, and from the mucous lining of the palate and the skin of the face. The mandibular division includes both motor and sensory fibers, branching into the lingual and inferior alveolar nerves (which then branches off into the mental nerves). The sensory branches transmit impulses from the scalp behind the ear, the skin of the jaw, the lower teeth, the lower gum, and the lower lip.