The sensory components of the spinal accessory nerve

✍ Scribed by William F. Windle

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1931
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 711 KB
• Volume: 53
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9967
• DOI: 10.1002/cne.900530105

✦ Synopsis

The spinal portion of the eleventh cranial nerve is usually considered to be purely motor. However, it has been known for many years that scattered groups of nerve cells of the sensory type occur along the course of its intracranial rootlets, and Fahmy ('27) recently described an extracranial ganglion in a three-month-old human infant. The existence of this seems to be occasional, because he failed to find any in an adult and in a seven-month-old fetus.

I n 1901, Weigner described numerous dissections of the upper cervical nerves in man and called attention to various types of anastomosis between the dorsal roots of these and the spinal accessory. I n some cases the first cervical dorsal root passed to the spinal cord directly from the accessory instead of from a separate ganglion. Sometimes visible swellings were found on the rootlets and intracranial part of the eleventh, and when these were sectioned and examined microscopically, numerous cells of sensory type were found. He concluded that in some cases the spinal accessory nerve is not purely motor. Weigner sectioned only those nerves on which swellings were visible, and for this reason the absence of scattered or small groups of cells was not confirmed.

After studying a series of human embryos, Streeter ('05) concluded that the tenth and eleventh cranial nerves are part ' Contribution no. 153.