12 cranial nerves

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The cranial nerves are a group of 12 nerves that originate directly from the brain and reach the periphery via openings of the skull (i.e. cranium). Each cranial nerve can be denoted by a name (e.g. olfactory nerve) or a number (i.e. Roman numerals: I-XII). The number of each nerve is based on its origin, when the brain and brainstem are observed from rostral to caudal. All 12 nerves are bilateral and collectively function to relay information to/from various parts of the body and brain.

Watch our first video that covers the basics of cranial nerves. The second video will help you in memorizing the cranial nerves and their types with a couple of very useful mnemonics.

According to the type of nuclei and subsequently the type of nervous fibers that constitute the nerve, we can classify them into seven modalities.

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Download the following PDF worksheets and identify the 12 cranial nerves.

BLANK WORKSHEET (PDF)LABELED WORKSHEET (PDF)

Browse atlas

Now you can observe each nerve in more detail with our image gallery:

Summary