cranial nerves of sight

We have twelve cranial nerves, and they are all great. They line up in pairs down our brain, and each one has a massive impact on our body. From our sense of smell to the feeling on our face, all the way down to digesting our food, each one is incredible. I learned the very basics while in Anatomy and Physiology, but now I am learning about each one in great detail while learning how to give a physical exam. This week, while learning about how to do an eye test, we learned about cranial nerves II, III, IV, and VI.

Cranial nerve II is our optic nerve. It helps us process sight, and allows us to actually view the world around us. It projects upside down on the back of our brain, and then that gets flipped around to help us create an image of the world around us. It's all done on the occipital lobe, which is on the very back of our head. That's why you see stars if you hit the back of your head. Cool, huh?

Cranial nerves III, IV, and VI are for moving our eyes around. Cranial nerve III is the workhorse. It moves our eye all around. It doesn't really get enough credit. Cranial nerves IV, and VI, though, are specialized. Cranial nerve IV, our trochlear nerve, is ONLY made for looking down and in towards your nose, and cranial nerve VI, the abducens nerve, is only for moving your eye to look out to the side. I think that is amazing. We have twelve nerves in our brain to control almost everything in our body, and two of them are solely for moving our eyes in one direction each. Incredible, right? So much goes into us being able to see all around us. We're lucky.