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Accessory nerve: The eleventh cranial nerve, which emerges from the skull and receives an additional (accessory) root from the upper part of the spinal cord. It supplies the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. The sternocleidomastoid muscle is in the front of the neck and turns the head. The trapezius muscle moves the scapula (the wingbone), turns the face to the opposite side, and helps pull the head back. The accessory nerve is so-called because, although it arises in the brain, it receives an additional (accessory) root from the upper part of the spinal cord.
Damage to the accessory nerve can be isolated (confined to the accessory nerve) or it may also involve the ninth and tenth cranial nerves which exit through the same opening (foramen) from the skull . Accessory neuropathy (nerve disease) can sometimes occur and recur for unknown reasons. Most patients recover.
Paralysis of the accessory nerve prevents rotation of the head away from that side and causes drooping of the shoulder.
n. Either of the 11th pair of cranial nerves, which convey motor impulses to the pharynx and muscles of the upper thorax, back, and shoulders.
Plan of upper portions of glossopharyngeal, vagus, and accessory nerves. Image source: Gray's Anatomy (1918) / Wikipedia
Accessory nerve: The eleventh cranial nerve, which emerges from the skull and receives an additional (accessory) root from the upper part of the spinal cord.
In anatomy, the accessory nerve is a nerve. that controls specific muscle. s of the shoulder and neck. As part of it was formerly believed to originate in the brain
nerve (nerv) a cordlike structure comprising a collection of nerve fibers that convey impulses between a part of the central nervous system and some other body region.