부산대학교 도서관

The spinal and cranial nerves (CNs) of the peripheral nervous system allow the spinal cord and brainstem to communicate with the rest of the body. The majority are mixed nerves, whose somatosensory and motor axons innervate skeletal muscles, joints, and skin, and whose autonomic axons innervate smooth muscles, blood vessels, and glands. Not all CNs are mixed nerves, some are more functionally specialized types of nerves containing only somatosensory axons (CNs I, II, and VIII), somatic motor axons (CNs IV, VI, XI, and XII), or a combination of somatic and visceral axons (CN III). This chapter presents the clinical anatomy of the spinal nerves and CNs and their peripheral targets, and describes the microscopic anatomy of a typical peripheral nerve.