Ophthalmic nerve at a glance
- What it is
- The ophthalmic nerve is the first and smallest division of the trigeminal nerve and is purely sensory.
- Location
- It runs forward in the lateral wall of the cavernous sinus and divides into the lacrimal, frontal and nasociliary nerves just before the superior orbital fissure.
- Function
- It carries sensation from the eyeball, conjunctiva, lacrimal gland, upper eyelid, forehead, scalp and nose, and part of the nasal cavity and the frontal sinus.
- Body system
- Nervous · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA52623 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- CN V1.
- Also supplies meningeal branches to the tentorium cerebelli.
Clinical relevance
Herpes zoster ophthalmicus is a shingles infection of this division.
Structures next to the ophthalmic nerve
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Trochlear nerve · nervous
- Posterior communicating artery · cardiovascular
- Amygdala · nervous
- Pituitary gland · endocrine
- Sphenoid part of middle cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Optic nerve · nervous
- Precommunicating part of posterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Anterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Communicating branch of nasociliary nerve with ciliary ganglion · nervous
- Anterior communicating artery · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Ophthalmic nerve (FMA52623). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §12.1 Basic Structure and Function of the Nervous System. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.