Carotid sinus nerve

The carotid sinus nerve (Hering's nerve) is a small branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve that innervates the carotid sinus and carotid body. It is a branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve that runs downwards, anterior to the internal carotid artery. It communicates with the vagus nerve and sympathetic trunk and then divides in the angle of the bifurcation of the common carotid artery to innervate the carotid body and carotid sinus. It carries impulses from the baroreceptors in the carotid sinus to the vasomotor center in the brainstem (to help maintain a more consistent blood pressure) and from chemoreceptors in the carotid body (mainly monitoring blood gas PaO2 and PaCO2 levels). Hering's nerve responds to both increases and decreases in blood pressure while the baroreceptors in the aortic arch respond only to increases in blood pressure .

Branch of glossopharyngeal nerve to carotid sinus
Hypoglossal nerve, cervical plexus and their branches (nerve not labeled, but region is visible)
Details
FromGlossopharyngeal nerve
Identifiers
LatinRamus sinus carotici nervi glossopharyngei
TAA14.2.01.146
FMA53488
Anatomical terms of neuroanatomy

References

This article incorporates text in the public domain from page 909 of the 20th edition of Gray's Anatomy (1918)

  • cranialnerves at The Anatomy Lesson by Wesley Norman (Georgetown University) (IX)
  • "9-13". Cranial Nerves. Yale School of Medicine. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.