The 7th cranial nerve. The facial nerve has two parts, the larger motor root which may be called the facial nerve proper, and the smaller intermediate or sensory root. Together they provide efferent innervation to the muscles of facial expression and to the lacrimal and salivary glands, and convey afferent information for taste from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue and for touch from the external ear.
One of a pair of mixed sensory and motor nerves, the seventh cranial nerves, that innervate much of the face, with sensory fibers extending from taste buds in the tongue and motor fibers extending to the scalp, muscles of facial expression, and some of the lacrimal (tear) and salivary glands.
A mixed sensory and motor nerve that supplies the muscles of facial expression, the taste buds of the front part of the tongue, the subungual salivary glands, and the lacrimal glands. A small branch to the middle ear regulates the tension on the ear ossicles.
The seventh cranial nerve (arising from the brain), supplying the muscles of expression in the face, and being purely a motor nerve. It enters the face immediately below the ear after splitting up into several branches.