Upper motor neuron syndrome facial

A facial palsy is weakness or paralysis of the muscles of the face. The facial nerve arises in the pons formed as separate sensory and motor roots , before travelling in the internal acoustic meatus, very close to the inner ear. As they enter the facial canal, the two roots fuse to form a single facial nerve, before giving off intracranial branches of the greater petrosal nerve, nerve to stapedius, and chorda tympani. The facial nerve then exits the facial canal and the cranium via the stylomastoid foramen.

NCBI Bookshelf. Nathan R. Walker ; Rakesh K. Mistry ; Thomas Mazzoni. Authors Nathan R.

Central facial palsy colloquially referred to as central seven is a symptom or finding characterized by paralysis or paresis of the lower half of one side of the face. It usually results from damage to upper motor neurons of the facial nerve. The facial motor nucleus has dorsal and ventral divisions that contain lower motor neurons supplying the muscles of the upper and lower face, respectively. The dorsal division receives bilateral upper motor neuron input i.

The facial motor nucleus is a collection of neurons in the brainstem that belong to the facial nerve cranial nerve VII. These lower motor neurons innervate the muscles of facial expression and the stapedius. The nucleus is situated in the caudal portion of the ventrolateral pontine tegmentum. Its axons take an unusual course, traveling dorsally and looping around the abducens nucleus , then traveling ventrally to exit the ventral pons medial to the spinal trigeminal nucleus.