Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about facial nerve palsy.

But if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic, you can follow along at

zero tofinals.com slash facial nerve palsy or in the neurology section of the zero definals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Facial nerve palsy refers to an isolated dysfunction of the facial nerve.

Remember the facial nerve is what controls the muscles of the face and the muscles that control

facial expressions.

Having a facial nerve palsy typically presents with a unilateral facial weakness. It's important to understand some basics about the pathway of the facial nerve

and the function of the facial nerve to consider the cause and management of a facial nerve palsy. But first let's start off discussing the facial nerve to consider the cause and management of a facial nerve palsy.

But first let's start off discussing the facial nerve pathway and the facial nerve exits the brainstem

at the cerebellopontine angle and on its journey to the face it passes through the temporal bone

and the parotid gland on the side of the face.

It then divides into five branches that supply different areas of the face, and from top to bottom,

those branches are temporal, zygomatic, buckle, marginal mandibular and cervical.

Let's talk about facial nerve function.

And the facial nerve has three functions,

motor, sensory and parasympathetic.

The motor function supplies the muscles of facial expression,

the stupidias in the inner ear,

and the posterior digastric, stylohyoid and platisma muscles in the neck.

The sensory component of the facial nerve carries taste from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue,

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