Central nervous system
Dave Maudgil, Anthony Watkinson in The Essential Guide to the New FRCR Part 2A and Radiology Boards, 2017
Are the following statements regarding cerebral anatomy true or false? The foramen rotundum transmits the mandibular nerve.The foramen spinosum is anteromedial to the foramen ovale.The foramen ovale transmits the middle meningeal artery.The foramen ovale is posterolateral to the foramen rotundum.The foramen lacerum is located at the base of the lateral pterygoid plate.
Clinical Neuroanatomy
John C Watkinson, Raymond W Clarke, Christopher P Aldren, Doris-Eva Bamiou, Raymond W Clarke, Richard M Irving, Haytham Kubba, Shakeel R Saeed in Paediatrics, The Ear, Skull Base, 2018
This is the largest branch of the Vth nerve and includes the motor branch. It exits from the skull base through the foramen ovale, the main sensory trunk being joined by the much smaller motor root, in Meckel’s cave, just outside the skull (Figure 111.8). A meningeal branch re-enters the skull with the middle meningeal artery through the foramen spinosum and conveys sensation from the lateral, middle and anterior cranial fossae. A small branch, the nerve to the medial pterygoid, supplies medial pterygoid, tensor tympani and tensor veli palatini. The main nerve then divides into anterior and posterior trunks.
Head and Neck
Rui Diogo, Drew M. Noden, Christopher M. Smith, Julia Molnar, Julia C. Boughner, Claudia Barrocas, Joana Bruno in Understanding Human Anatomy and Pathology, 2018
The temporal region (Plates 3.8 and 3.28 through 3.30) includes the temporal fossa and the infratemporal fossa, which lie superiorly and inferiorly to the zygomatic arch, respectively. The bony features of this region are shown in Plate 3.8 and described in detail in Section 3.2. Briefly, the parietal bone and frontal bone include the superior and inferior temporal lines for attachment of the temporalis muscle. The zygomatic arch is formed by the zygomatic process of the temporal bone and the temporal process of the zygomatic bone. The temporal fossa is formed by the parietal, frontal, squamous part of the temporal, and greater wing of the sphenoid, and contains the temporalis muscle. The infratemporal fossa contains the medial pterygoid muscle, lateral pterygoid muscle, branches of the mandibular nerve (CN V3) and the maxillary artery, and the venous pterygoid plexus converging into the maxillary veins (Plate 3.29). These two fossae communicate with each other through the interval between the zygomatic arch and the lateral surface of the skull. The pterygomaxillary fissure lies between the lateral plate of the pterygoid process of the sphenoid bone and the infratemporal surface of the maxilla. The pterygopalatine fossa lies at the superior end of the pterygomaxillary fissure, and the sphenopalatine foramen (which opens into the nasal cavity) is medial to the fossa (Plate 3.8c; see Box 3.9 for an easy way to remember these structures). The inferior orbital fissure lies between the maxilla and the greater wing of the sphenoid bone, which contains the foramen ovale and foramen spinosum.
Foramen caecum medullae oblongatae in the history of anatomical terminology
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2020
František Šimon, Florian Steger
The Arabic translation of this work by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809–876) included an additional note at this point: It “is called ‘the blind,’ although it is open” (Al-Dubayan 2000, 128). Jacques-Bénigne Winslow (1669–1760) described the hollow part of the frontal bone foramen spinosum sive coecum dictum (i.e., a spinous or so-called blind opening; 1753, 51). Soemmerring gave no reason for his selection of this particular adjective, but in using the word caecus he surely did not understand it in the sense of blind, or in the sense of closed off, for the opening is real, with small vessels passing through it, and Soemmerring himself commented that it is an opening “recipiendis vasis destinatum” (i.e., intended for accommodating vessels. The adjective was used here most likely with the meaning of hidden or invisible, which is one of the definitions given for caecus by the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1968, 250), or, as the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1906–1912, 45) paraphrased its meaning, “de iis rebus, quae cognosci male possunt” (i.e., referring to things that are hard to recognize.
3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging reveals vasculitis-caused otitis media in a patient with giant cell arteritis
Published in Acta Oto-Laryngologica Case Reports, 2021
Natsuki Aoki, Taro Fujikawa, Natsuka Umezawa, Yoshiyuki Kawashima, Taku Ito, Keiji Honda, Takeshi Tsutsumi
A 56-year-old man presented with diplopia, left-sided severe temporal headache, and ipsilateral hearing loss for two months. He had a medical history of diplopia at the age of 40 years, which resolved without treatment. Antiepileptic and anti-coagulant therapy were used for treatment of epilepsy and transient ischemic attack due to occlusion of the left internal carotid artery, respectively, at 42 years of age. Examination of the patient at the time of presentation revealed otitis media with effusion (Figure 1) and a conductive hearing loss with a large air-bone gap (Figure 2(A)) in the left ear. Furthermore, severe tenderness on palpation was present along the tortuous course of the superficial temporal artery (STA) on the left side. Ophthalmologic examination revealed bilateral abducens nerve paralysis and normal vision. No signs of PMR or extracranial involvement were found. C-reactive protein was elevated to 4.1 mg/dL, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate was 40 mm/h. Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) were absent. The patient was referred for a contrast-enhanced, T1-weighted, 3 D-MRI at 3-Tesla for assessment of inflammatory involvement of the cranial arteries. Fast spin-echo (SE) imaging with fat suppression demonstrated mural inflammation of the STA on the left side (Figure 3(A,B)) with normal findings on the right side (Figure 3(C)), and thromboembolism and wall thickening of the left internal carotid artery (Figure 3(D)). Simultaneously, fast-spoiled gradient-echo (GRE) imaging revealed intense enhancement of the tympanic (Figure 4(A)) and mastoid (Figure 4(B)) segments of the left fallopian canal. Moreover, mural inflammation of the medial meningeal artery (MMA) was evident at the foramen spinosum on SE imaging (Figure 5(A)), which was accompanied by inflammation in the surrounding tissues, including the eustachian tube, on GRE imaging (Figure 5(B)) and simple effusion in the tympanic cleft on T2-weighted MRI (Figure 5(C)). Temporal artery biopsy specimens showed only mural inflammation without granulomatous formation. The patient was clinically diagnosed with cranial GCA and was prescribed 40 mg prednisolone per day, which resulted in a prompt recovery from headache and resolution of hearing loss on audiometry (Figure 2(B)). However, with a gradual attempted decrease in the dose of prednisolone to 25 mg, he experienced a relapse of headache. At the time of the study, the patient was being administered 25 mg prednisolone combined with methotrexate.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Foramen
- Infratemporal Fossa
- Middle Cranial Fossa
- Middle Meningeal Artery
- Neurosurgery
- Skull
- Sphenoid Bone
- Greater Wing of Sphenoid Bone
- Meningeal Branch of The Mandibular Nerve
- Foramen Ovale