# What is the trigeminal nerve?

The trigeminal nerve is called the trigeminal nerve (fifth cranial nerve). Gray's Anatomy (1918) describes it as the fifth cranial nerve.

## What it means

- The fifth cranial nerve.
- Its name means 'three-branched'.
- The main sensory nerve of the face and the motor nerve of the chewing muscles.

## Action steps

1. Arises from the pons.
2. Divides into three branches — ophthalmic, maxillary, and mandibular — near the top of the temporal bone.
3. Each branch supplies a different region of the face.

## Sources

- [Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body (1918)](https://www.bartleby.com/107/)

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