Short ciliary nerve at a glance
- What it is
- The short ciliary nerves are branches of the ciliary ganglion that supply the eyeball.
- Location
- Six to ten nerves run forward from the ciliary ganglion around the optic nerve to pierce the posterior sclera.
- Function
- They carry parasympathetic fibres to the ciliary muscle and sphincter pupillae, as well as sensory fibres from the eyeball and sympathetic fibres to vessels.
- Body system
- Nervous · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA7041 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Parasympathetic fibres synapse in the ciliary ganglion.
- Sensory fibres originate from the nasociliary nerve.
Clinical relevance
Parasympathetic loss causes a dilated, poorly reactive pupil.
Structures next to the short ciliary nerve
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Ethmoid · skeletal
- Anterior ethmoidal nerve · nervous
- Nasociliary nerve · nervous
- Medial rectus · muscular
- Ophthalmic artery · cardiovascular
- Optic nerve · nervous
- Long ciliary nerve · nervous
- Communicating branch of nasociliary nerve with ciliary ganglion · nervous
- Superior branch of oculomotor nerve · nervous
- Medial frontobasal artery · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Short ciliary nerve (FMA7041). 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.