hey everyone ryan here and welcome back to our head and neck anatomy series of videos now that we've introduced the different bones of the skull let's talk about foramina of those skull bones a foramen is an opening that allows vital structures to pass from one part of the body to another and in this case between the inside and outside of the skull and the word foramina is just plural for the word foramen so let's go through each of the skull bones and talk about the foramina that each one has so first the frontal bone this one has one which is the supraorbital foramen one on each side the supraorbital foramen transmits the supraorbital nerve artery and vein all sharing that same name which is appropriate because it's located just above the orbit the supraorbital nerve is part of v1 and that's the first division of cranial nerve five or the trigeminal nerve and we'll talk much more about nerves and cranial nerves in future videos if we go down to the maxilla this one has the infraorbital foramen transmitting the infraorbital nerve artery and vein again all sharing that same name which makes sense because this one's located just below the orbit the infraorbital nerve is part of the second division of that trigeminal nerve and you might be noticing a trend here if we go one more bone down to the mandible this one has the mental foramen which transmits the mental nerve artery and vein being part of the third division of the trigeminal nerve so not only do we have that trend going on but if we just look at the location of these foramina they all fall in basically the straight vertical line through the pupil so it's a very interesting location for these foramina how they each cover a unique third of the face for sensory innervation all right let's go to the ethmoid bone and now we're looking at a different view we're actually looking at the base of the skull half of the base of the skull and this is an aerial view looking down at that base so the ethmoid bone is up here and it has this thing called the cribriform plate and the cribriform plate has a bunch of tiny little holes in it where tendrils of cranial nerve one are transmitted through those little holes cranial nerve one is the olfactory nerve responsible for olfaction or smell how i remember this is that i think of a baby's crib smelling pretty bad and so if you remember that a baby's crib smells bad that makes sense for the olfactory nerve responsible for smell let's move one bone back to the sphenoid bone and like i said in the last video this one has a ton of foramina so we'll spend a bit of time on this one so let's start with the optic canal the optic canal transmits the optic nerve and the ophthalmic nerve the actual opening is called the optic foramen the actual tunnel is called the optic canal which empties into the orbit of course the optic nerve is responsible for our site next we have the superior orbital fissure which is this pretty large opening and it transmits a lot of nerves being cranial nerve three four v one and six so a lot is passing through that superior orbital fissure if we go back to this hole here this one's called the foramen rotundum a nice round hole that transmits v2 if we go back to this one this oval shaped hole that's the foramen ovale this one transmits v3 and the lesser petrosal nerve this small little hole there is called foramen spinosum this one transmits the middle meningeal artery and then we finally have the foramen lacerum this is this uh hole between the sphenoid temporal and occipital bones this one transmits the gradle greater petrosal nerve and deep petrossal nerve both combined together are is called the vidian nerve or nerve of the pterygoid canal that's both the greater and deep when they're combined so how i remember the different v1 v2 and v3 holes that are being that they're being transmitted through i remember this little phrase standing room only standing room only sro and that corresponds to s being superior orbital fissure for v1 rotundum for v2 and ovoli for v3 sro standing room only so let's go back to the temporal bone this one has the carotid canal which is located right here this transmits the internal carotid artery the internal carotid artery actually enters the bottom of the skull a bit more laterally and then it courses medially through this petrous part of the temporal bone where it exits right at this hole right by that foramen lacerum at the base of the brain we have the internal auditory meatus which is right here on the other side of that mountain the petrous portion of the temporal bone this one transmits both cranial nerves seven and eight then we have the jugular foramen which transmits cranial nerves 9 10 and 11. and finally we have the occipital bone the occipital bone is home to the hypoglossal canal which transmits our very last cranial nerve which is cranial nerve 12. and then of course we have this really large hole called the foramen magnum which is an appropriate term the great hole and this one transmits the spinal cord spinal and vertebral arteries of course the spinal cord taking up the bulk of that space alright so that's it for this video guys thank you so much for watching please like this video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to this channel for much more on dentistry if you're interested in supporting this channel and what i do please check out my patreon page thank you to all of my patrons here for their support you can unlock extras like access to my video slides to take notes on and practice questions for the board exams so go check that out the link is in the description thanks again for watching everyone and i'll see you in the next video