Nerve · Head

Facial nerve

Nervus facialis

The facial nerve moves the face. It drives every muscle of facial expression — the muscles that raise the brow, close the eye, and shape the smile — and it also carries taste from the front two-thirds of the tongue and supplies the tear and salivary glands. It takes a long, tortuous course through a narrow bony canal in the temporal bone before emerging just behind the earlobe and fanning out through the parotid gland. That bony canal leaves it little room to swell, which is why facial nerve palsy causes weakness of the whole side of the face, including the forehead.