Expansion
Standing Room Only
Mnemonic
“Standing Room Only”, for how each division leaves the skull:
- V1 ophthalmic - Superior orbital fissure
- V2 maxillary - foramen Rotundum
- V3 mandibular - foramen Ovale
Only V3 carries motor fibres, to the muscles of mastication plus mylohyoid, the anterior belly of digastric, tensor tympani and tensor veli palatini.
The sensory territories divide the face into three horizontal bands: forehead (V1), cheek (V2), jaw (V3), and the angle of the mandible is spared because it is supplied by C2 and C3. Facial numbness that includes the angle of the jaw is therefore not anatomically trigeminal.
Expansion
- S - Ophthalmic (V1)
- R - Maxillary (V2)
- O - Mandibular (V3)