Nerve · Head

Anterior superior alveolar nerve

Nervi alveolares superiores anteriores

The nerve of the upper front teeth. It leaves the infraorbital nerve while that nerve is still inside its canal in the floor of the orbit, then curves down and outward through a slender channel in the front wall of the maxillary sinus to reach the incisors and canine, joining the shared network — the superior dental plexus — that the other two alveolar nerves also feed. A small nasal branch peels off to supply the lining of the front of the nasal floor and the lower septum. It explains why a numb upper lip and numb front teeth arrive together: both are downstream of the same short stretch of one bony canal.