Nerve · Head

Posterior auricular nerve

Nervus auricularis posterior

The first branch the facial nerve gives off after leaving the skull, and a motor nerve throughout. It arises immediately below the stylomastoid foramen, turns upward in the groove between the mastoid process and the ear canal, and divides in two: an auricular branch to the muscles behind and on the back of the ear, and an occipital branch running back along the superior nuchal line to the occipital belly of occipitofrontalis, the muscle that anchors the scalp at the back of the head. It is the nerve at work in the uncommon knack of wiggling one's ears. Do not confuse its territory with the great auricular nerve, which is sensory, comes from the neck, and covers much of the same skin.