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Today we’re going to go over a few mnemonics and tricks to
help you remember all the different cranial nerves including their names and function.
But this video is different from the other cranial nerve videos that are out there.
Most of those videos give you a mnemonic but they don’t tell you how to remember
the cranial nerves that start with the same letter, which makes the mnemonic tough to use.
So in this video, you’re also going to learn tricks to remember the cranial
nerves that start with the same letter, so make sure to watch until the end.
Remember all the videos come with notes and study guides,
so make sure to hit that subscribe button to not miss out.
You can find the notes and study guide for this video linked below.
So turn on the captions down below and read along, and let’s get right into it!
First, were going to go over a simple mnemonic to remember the cranial nerve names.
There are 12 pairs of cranial nerves.
And they include the olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial,
vestibulocochlear, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory, and hypoglossal.
The mnemonic I like to use to remember the cranial nerve names is “Only one
of the two athletes felt very good, victorious, and healthy”.
It’s an original mnemonic that I came up with and works for me,
but there are a lot of different mnemonics out there to help you remember them.
So choose the one that works best for you.
Many of the mnemonics out there I think are fragmented or random words,
so they don’t work for me as much.
I prefer a simple sentence like this one.
This will help you remember cranial nerve I is the olfactory,
cranial nerve II is the optic,
cranial nerve III is the oculomotor,
cranial nerve IV is the trochlear,
cranial nerve V is the trigeminal,
cranial nerve VI is the abducens,
cranial nerve VII is the facial,
cranial nerve VIII is the vestibulocochlear,
cranial nerve IX is the glossopharyngeal,
cranial nerve X is the vagus,
cranial nerve XI is the accessory,
and cranial nerve XII is the hypoglossal.
So write this mnemonic down and repeat it several times and you’ll have it committed to memory.
Now you can see some of the cranial nerves start with the same letter,
so how do you know which one to use in the mnemonic?
Well make sure to keep watching until the end
because there are tricks to help you with this too.
Let’s move on to another mnemonic that will help you remember the function of the cranial nerves.
And by the way if you have any mnemonics that you like to use,
share them down below in the comments for everyone!
Cranial nerves are sensory, motor, or both.
The sensory cranial nerves take sensory
information from the body and send it to the brain.
And the motor cranial nerves send information from the brain to the body for movement.
And finally, some cranial nerves can have both sensory and motor components.
The mnemonic I like to use is “Some say marry money,
but my brother says big brains matter most”.
I didn't come up with this mnemonic and its a common one many people use,
but I think its one of the best ones out there.
It’s easy to remember and it’s a smooth sentence.
Remember the words starting with "S" indicate sensory cranial nerves, and the words starting
with "M" indicate motor cranial nerves, and the words starting with "B" indicate both motor and sensory.
So cranial nerve I is sensory,
cranial nerve II is sensory,
cranial nerve III is motor,
cranial nerve IV is motor,
cranial nerve V is both,
cranial nerve VI is motor,
cranial nerve VII is both,
cranial nerve VIII is sensory,
cranial nerve IX is both,
cranial nerve X is both,
cranial nerve XI is motor,
and cranial nerve XII is motor.
Just like the first mnemonic,
write this one down and repeat it several times to commit it to memory.
And if you write down both mnemonics next to each other,
you’ll have the names and functions of the cranial nerves,
as you can see shown here.
Now let’s go over some tricks to remember the cranial nerves that start with the same letter.
As you can see most of the cranial nerves share a common first letter.
The mnemonic to remember the names of the cranial nerves is great, but how do you know
which cranial nerve to use when more than one cranial nerve starts with that letter?
Well I came up with some tricks to help you with this.
Let’s begin with the cranial nerves that start with the letter “O”
This includes the olfactory, optic, and oculomotor nerves which are cranial nerves I, II, and III.
The olfactory nerve deals with the sense of smell and we only have 1 nose.
So you can remember the olfactory nerve is cranial nerve I because we have 1 nose.
The optic nerve deals with the sense of vision and we have 2 eyes.
So you can remember the optic nerve is cranial nerve II because we have 2 eyes.
The oculomotor nerve contains the word “motor” and we know from the mnemonic that
the only motor cranial nerve between cranial nerves I, II, and III is cranial nerve III.
So you can remember the oculomotor nerve is cranial nerve III because
it contains the word “motor” and it’s the only motor nerve of those three.
Cranial nerves I and II are sensory.
Let’s move on to the cranial nerves that start with the letter “T”.
This includes the trochlear and trigeminal nerves which are cranial nerves IV and V.
For the trochlear nerve, use the “O” in trochlear and the “O” in four
to remember the trochlear nerve is cranial nerve IV.
For the trigeminal nerve, use the “I” in trigeminal and the “I” in five to
remember the trigeminal nerve is cranial nerve V.
Let’s move on to the cranial nerves that start with the letter “A”.
This includes the abducens and accessory nerves, which are cranial nerves VI and XI.
For abducens, I like to say "abdusix" to help me remember the abducens nerve is cranial nerve VI.
And for the accessory nerve, you’ll notice there are 2 pairs of letters in the word
and the number 11 contains a pair of 1s.
So this helps me remember the accessory nerve is cranial nerve XI.
Finally, we have the cranial nerves that start with the letter “V”.
This includes the vestibulocochlear and vagus nerves, which are cranial nerves VIII and X.
The vestibulocochlear nerve has to do with hearing and equilibrium.
Ear and equilibrium both start with the letter
“E” and this will help you remember cranial nerve VIII.
The vagus nerve mainly innervates organs in the thorax and abdomen.
Thorax and tummy both start with the letter “T” and this will help you remember cranial nerve X.
Hopefully this gave you an easy way to remember the cranial nerves.
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