What is the acoustic nerve?

What it is

• The acoustic nerve consists of two distinct sets of fibers which differ in their peripheral endings, central connections, functions, and time of medullation. It is soft in texture and devoid of neurilemma. Cochlear Nerve. —The cochlear nerve or root, the nerve of hearing, arises from bipolar cells in the spiral ganglion of the cochlea, situated near the inner edge of the osseous spiral lamina. The peripheral fibers pass to the organ of Corti.
• The central ones pass down the modiolus and then through the foramina of the tractus spiralis foraminosus or through the foramen centrale into the lateral or outer end of the internal auditory meatus. The nerve passes along the internal auditory meatus with the vestibular nerve and across the subarachnoid space, just above the flocculus, almost directly medialward toward the inferior peduncle to terminate in the cochlear nucleus. The cochlear nerve is placed lateral to the vestibular root.
• Its fibers end in two nuclei: one, the accessory nucleus, lies immediately in front of the inferior peduncle; the other, the tuberculum acusticum, somewhat lateral to it.