Nerve Supply of the Anterolateral Abdominal Wall

00:01 Now let's just quickly again have a look at the nerve supply to the abdominal wall.

00:05 We've spoken about the function of the muscles, their blood supply, but also they do need to have a nerve supply to help them function.

00:13 And what we can see here is and I appreciate these nerves are a little bit small, but coming away from spinal cord segments T6 through to T11, we have various intercostal nerves.

00:23 Above T6 section of the intercostal nerves that just go and supply the intercostal muscles.

00:29 But from about T6 to T11, where we had those dermatomal areas.

00:33 We have the spinal nerves coming around running between the layers of anterolateral abdominal walls and we'll touch on this a bit more later on as a specific example within the inguinal region.

00:43 We can see these nerves running all the way around the anterior lateral abdominal wall, T6 through to T11.

00:50 Down at the bottom, you can start see how some of these nerves actually pick up a name.

00:56 So we have intercostal nerves T6 - T11.

00:58 But then T-12 is specifically the subcostal nerve.

01:03 Causing from the posterior aspect of the body underneath the 12th rib subcostal it gives rise to this nerve that runs around, and it runs pretty much just above the pubic symphysis.

01:15 We then have the iliohypogastric nerve and the ilioinguinal nerve.

01:19 And these nerves, again, run around the inferior aspects of the anterior lateral abdominal wall.

01:24 Notice how the iliohypogastric and the ilioinguinal are two nerves, both coming from the same spinal cord segment.

01:31 So the spinal nerve leaves and then it will split.

01:34 Iliohypogastric and ilioinguinal.

01:37 We'll come back to the ilioinguinal later on, because that goes down into the scrotum or the labia region of the male and female respectively.

01:44 And that has an association with the spermatic cord.

01:47 And we'll talk about that later on.

01:49 So various nerves running around and supplying the anterior lateral abdominal wall.

01:55 This region is really nice, and it helps to show us which layers of the muscle these nerves run in.

02:00 And they'll also run within their neighboring intercostal, or lumbar artery, which muscle layers they run in.

02:09 So here we can see the spinal cord at the bottom of the screen.

02:12 So the posterior aspect of the body, and we can see we have the spinal cord radiating both to the left and right.

02:19 We have various spinal nerves, the left spinal nerve, the right spinal nerve, and you can see how it courses between transverse abdominis and internal oblique muscle.

02:30 So you see the three layers of muscle there transverse abdominis, which is the deepest; external oblique, which is the most superficial; and then between the two, we have internal oblique.

02:40 And you can see how the nerve is running between transverse abdominis and internal oblique.

02:45 And it runs between those two layers all the way around the abdomen.

02:50 At some points, a nerve branch will penetrate through and go on to supply more superficial muscles in the region, and also the surface of the skin.

02:59 But here we can see the course of those blood of those nerves running around the anterolateral abdominal wall.