Supratrochlear nerve at a glance
- What it is
- The supratrochlear nerve is the smaller terminal branch of the frontal nerve.
- Location
- It passes above the trochlea of the superior oblique and leaves the orbit at its medial upper corner.
- Function
- It is sensory to the medial forehead, the medial upper eyelid and the conjunctiva.
- Body system
- Nervous · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA52644 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Branch of CN V1.
- It leaves the orbit with the supratrochlear artery about 1 cm medial to the supra-orbital nerve.
Clinical relevance
Supratrochlear and supra-orbital nerve blocks anaesthetise the forehead for wound repair.
Structures next to the supratrochlear nerve
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Trochlea of superior oblique · skeletal
- Supra-orbital nerve · nervous
- Infratrochlear nerve · nervous
- Medial frontobasal artery · cardiovascular
- Anterior ethmoidal nerve · nervous
- Nasociliary nerve · nervous
- Ophthalmic artery · cardiovascular
- Tendon of levator palpebrae superioris · muscular
- Superior oblique · muscular
- Superior rectus · muscular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Supratrochlear nerve (FMA52644). 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.