MEDRADSC 3I03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Cranial Nerves, Straight Sinus, Internal Occipital Protuberance

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Medical Radiation Sciences
• Course: MEDRADSC 3I03
• Professor: Alana Trainor

Document Summary

Walls of arteries in brain are thin and weak. Capillaries unlike anywhere else do not allow movement of certain molecules from vascular compartment into surround brain tissue. This impermeability is called blood brain barrier: prevents contrast from entering brain, pathology breach bbb. Pituitary gland, infundibulum (not protected by bbb: show up with contrast. Certain pathologies can disrupt integrity- allowing contrast to escape vessels into surrounding tissue. Two major vessels and their branches: internal carotid and vertebrals, many normal variants. Supply frontal, parietal and temporal lobes and orbital structures. Arise from bifurcation of carotid arteries in neck. Ascend through base of skull and enter through carotid canals of temporal bones. Then ica moves forward within cavernous sinus. As it exits the cavernous sinus ica branches into opthalmic artery just inferior to anterior clinoid process. Runs lateral to optic chiasm, then branches into anterior cerebral artery and larger middle cerebral artery.