Double Dactyl XXXV

Double Dactyl XXXV

Finnius-ninnius St. Valentinius: Beaten to death, though the Stories are vague; What can be uncovered, Martyrologically, Is that he’s also the Patron of plague.

That is most definitely NOT the mnemonic for the cranial nerves that I learned.

(Keep in mind that I learned it with the Statoacoustic nerve instead of the Vestibulocochlear)

-hover for mnemonic or check the tags-

Cranial Nerves

There are twelve nerves that come out of or into the brain (the rest of the nerves go out of and into the spinal cord).  These cranial nerves have been whitened on this picture, and you can see all twelve pretty well (one of each on each side).  They include the olfactory for smelling (the most anterior- or on this picture, the highest), optic for seeing (the second highest, shown as they cross at the optic chiasm), as well as many motor and sensory neurons for the face- and the vagus, which you may have heard of in terms of heartrate, breathing, etc. (The vagus modulates the parasympathetic response- or the relaxing as it is opposite to the stress response.  The vagus slows heartrate, decreases breathing, relaxes muscles, decreases sweat production, increases digestion, etc.)

There are many mnemonics for remembering the twelve in order (I is the most anterior to XII being the most posterior- or top to bottom on this image).  They can be named by their number (for instance, the olfactory nerve is also cranial nerve I and the vagus nerve is also CN X) or by their more common name.  The mnemonic I was taught to learn the twelve was: “On Old Olympus’ Towering Top, A Friendly Viking Grew Vines and Hops” but I will fully admit it never worked well for me.  (This sentence corresponds to the first letter of each nerve: olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, vestibulocochlear, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory, hypoglossal.)

The nerves carry motor information (movement), sensory information (touch/taste/smell/vision), or both motor and sensory information!  There are also many mnemonics to remember which nerve carries which kind of information.  The one I was taught is “Some Say Marry Money, But My Brother Says Bad Business Marry Money.” S means sensory, M means motor, and B means both, starting with the first word corresponding to the first nerve through the last corresponding to the twelfth nerve (so, for instance, ofactory and optic, the first two nerves are both Sensory, the next two- oculomotor and trochlear- are Motor, etc).

[Image Source]

New PBF: “One Time Thing”

It’s hard to imagine that Carl Sagan could ever be evil, but perhaps in some parallel universe, this is exactly how it would go …

If you wish to destroy the universe, start with the pie, my friend …

From the always entertaining Sci-ənce comic, illustrated by the delightfully evil Maki Naro.

Lovely poems Waterstones!