Nerve · Jaw

Chorda tympani

Chorda tympani

A branch of the facial nerve that carries taste from the front of the tongue and the secretory supply to two salivary glands — and reaches them by crossing the inside of the eardrum. It leaves the facial nerve in its bony canal just above the exit behind the ear, turns forward into the middle ear, and passes between the handle of the malleus and the long process of the incus beneath the mucous membrane, in full view of anyone looking into that space. It then drops out of the skull through the petrotympanic fissure and joins the lingual nerve, riding the rest of the way to the tongue on a branch of the trigeminal. Its name is literal: the string (*chorda*) of the drum (*tympani*).