Nerve · Jaw

Mandibular nerve

Nervus mandibularis

The largest division of the trigeminal nerve, and the only one that is mixed: it feels and it moves. Its sensory root leaves the trigeminal ganglion and drops through foramen ovale, where the trigeminal nerve's entire motor root joins it — so every muscle the trigeminal drives is driven from here. It supplies the four chewing muscles (masseter, temporalis and the two pterygoids) along with mylohyoid, the front belly of digastric and the two tensor muscles, while its sensory branches carry feeling from the lower lip, chin, lower teeth, the front two-thirds of the tongue and the jaw joint itself. One division therefore owns the chewing muscles, the lower teeth, the jaw joint and the front of the tongue together.