hello all this is dr. Alsup and we are going to really get into some of the branches of the
maxillary artery located in them for temporal fossa as well as some superficial veins in the
in front temporal fossa region so let's not waste any time and get right into it we're
going to start with the veins because they are the most superficial and when typically needs
to remove them to get a clearer view of the deeper arteries and certainly in terms of the mandibular
nerve so this whole complex right here I'm just gonna circle the general region is going to be
part of the pterygoid plexus of veins which is a collection of small veins in the general location
of the pterygoid muscle so it's going to drain that that particular region you can see these
are quite small but it's quite dominant in this region this this plexus of veins and all of these
smaller branches will coalesce or join to form the maxillary vein which you can see right here now
maxillary vein is generally larger in diameter but it is pretty short it will fairly quickly join with
the superficial temporal vein to form the retro mandibular brain now in order to better see the
maxillary artery and its branches the veins just discuss needed to be removed in this particular
dissection so we are left looking at this pretty large maxillary artery right here recall that the
maxillary artery is a terminal branch of the eca remember what that stands for external carotid
artery and it's the larger terminal branch of the external carotid artery the maxillary artery is
divided into three parts based on its relationship with the lateral pterygoid muscle specifically
this inferior head of the lateral pterygoid muscle the first or mandibular part which we will start
with is going to be kind of deep to the mandible and posterior to the lateral pterygoid the second
part or the pterygoid part is going to be adjacent to the lateral pterygoid muscle so it see they're
going to be loaded located superficial as it is here or deep to the lateral pterygoid and
the third or pterygopalatine part will be anterior medial to the lateral pterygoid but
really that name change doesn't occur until you get towards that pterygomaxillary fissure which
is going to be in this general region over here and so that's how it's entering to the tear go
Palatine fossa so it's really not you don't get many of those branches until you're headed into
that region so we're gonna focus on the branches of the first and the second parts in this video
because we're really focused on the four temporal fossa region and save the third part for a video
for another session so let's start with the first part this is going to be deep to the neck of the
mandible which has been removed here you can see a little bit left of the mandibular condyle
so it'd be right around this region um all of the branches of the first part of the maxillary
artery will traverse a bone so it's heading for some form of foramen and the first two branches
are exceptionally small typically the first one which I'm going to draw an arrow to right here is
going to be the deep auricular with the the second branch very close to the the deeper regular which
is the anterior tympanic so you can see these are extremely small muscles excuse me they would be
very small muscles they're very small arteries right here in this region the deep auricular
will pierce the external acoustic meatus whereas the anterior tympanic artery will actually pass
through the petrotympanic fissure to get into the skull and remember that Petrotympanic fissure is
also how the chorda tympani will exit the skull to get to the infra temporal fossa okay moving a
little more distally you're going to have the middle meningeal artery which I just outlined
right here this will enter the skull via the foramen spinosum to supply the dura mater
so that's where it's getting that meningioma its name and then the last branch of the first part is
going to be the only one that really is descending the rest you could see our ace ending and that's
going to be the inferior alveolar artery which will accompany the inferior alveolar alveolar
nerve or I a in into that mandibular foramen so you can kind of see it's heading into the bone
into that mandibular foramen all right moving to the second part of the maxillary artery which you
can see on this donor is going to be superficial to the inferior head of the lateral pterygoid
muscle all the branches of the second part will supply muscles of mastication and surrounding
structures so remember we had those four muscles of mastication the masseter the temporalis and the
pterygoid muscles you'll also have the closely associated Buccinator muscle right here
which is innervated by the facial nerve but it will have some of its supply from one of these
branches of the maxillary artery okay usually the most proximal branch of the second part is
the masseteric artery which is the case here nice M on this and this this particular dissection it's
been cut pretty close to the source so you don't really see where it's going and that
makes sense because the masseter muscle has been completely removed in this dissection this artery
will accompany the masseteric nerve through the mandibular notch to enter the deep portions of
the masseter muscle so we've seen that in some other videos the next branch that you can locate
I'm just gonna draw along here is the posterior deep temporal artery which you can see a sending
to reach the deep side of the temporalis muscle which has been reflected up just so you can really
see some of these branches and this artery often gives off a varying number of pterygoid branches
which you can see here and here and it's important to note though that the pterygoid branches can't
there can be branches and many of these arteries in this region you can actually see one right here
directly off of the maxillary artery continuing on you can see the anterior deep temporal artery also
going to supply the temporalis muscle and lastly you're going to have this artery right here which
is the buccal artery and the buccal artery is going to accompany the buccal nerve which you
can see right here sometimes this is referred to as the long buccal nerve into the buccal facial
space so this artery is actually going to supply some of the blood supply to the Buccinator muscle
we know that the long buccal nerve will not innervate the buccinator because that's going
to be efferently innervated by a facial nerve branch so it's going this long buccal nerve is
going to be a sensory branch for this region you can see actually that the buccal artery in this
particular donor is coming off quite anterior medial to the lateral pterygoid muscle but it
is still typically considered a branch of the second part of the maxillary artery really
branches of the third part like I had mentioned before don't really start occurring until you
get to that tear go maxillary fissure which is quite medial so those are the main branches of
the first and second parts of the maxillary artery as always and as always please take time to try
to identify these structures on your own and if you have any lingering questions after doing that
please do always feel free to reach out with any questions thank you for your time and attention