The facial nerve provides motor innervation to the muscles of facial expression and inner ear, sensory (taste) innervation, as well as parasympathetic innervation to the parasympathetic ganglia.
Course
- Begins from two parts:
- The nervus intermedius (consisting of special sensory and parasympathetic innervation)
- The motor part
- As it passes through the internal acoustic meatus, it will form the geniculate ganglion (Latin: small knee, owing to the sharp angle formed within the internal acoustic meatus).
- The intracranial branches of CN VII will form the greater petrosal, chorda tympani nerves and the nerve to stapedius muscle, while the "visible" facial nerve (the