Sciatic Nerve - Branches

Branches

The nerve gives off articular and muscular branches.

  • The articular branches (rami articulares) arise from the upper part of the nerve and supply the hip-joint, perforating the posterior part of its capsule; they are sometimes derived from the sacral plexus.
  • The muscular branches (rami musculares) are distributed to the following muscles of the lower limb: biceps femoris, semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and the hamstring portion of adductor magnus. The nerve to the short head of the biceps femoris comes from the common fibular part of the sciatic (see below), while the other muscular branches arise from the tibial portion, as may be seen in those cases where there is a high division of the sciatic nerve.

The muscular branch eventually gives off the tibial nerve and common fibular nerve, which innervates the muscles of the (lower) leg. The tibial nerve goes on to innervate all muscles of the foot except the extensor digitorum brevis (which is innervated by the common fibular nerve).

Read more about this topic:  Sciatic Nerve

Famous quotes containing the word branches:

    The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    “I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.”
    “What was that?” inquired Alice.
    “Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
    “I never heard of ‘Uglification,’” Alice ventured to say.
    Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)

    It is comforting when one has a sorrow to lie in the warmth of one’s bed and there, abandoning all effort and all resistance, to bury even one’s head under the cover, giving one’s self up to it completely, moaning like branches in the autumn wind. But there is still a better bed, full of divine odors. It is our sweet, our profound, our impenetrable friendship.
    Marcel Proust (1871–1922)