External Carotid Artery

00:00 the facial. We discussed about the common carotid dividing into external internal. The internal enters the carotid canal, goes into the brain.

00:15 That’s fine, we'll leave it there for now. External carotid in the neck, main branches? What are the branches of the external carotid in the neck? Superior thyroid? Superior thyroid.

00:25 Ascending pharyngeal.

00:29 Very good. Ascending pharyngeal. Lingual Sorry? Lingual. Yeah, facial. Anything else you can think of? Maxillary. Um, maxillary, occipital, superficial temporal, Occipital. Maxillary, superficial temporal. Superficial temporal. So what does this “P” stand for? Posterior auricular? Posterior auricular. So the mnemonic to remember is: Some Angry Lady Figured Out PMS.

01:45 So that’s your mnemonic "Some Angry Lady Figured Out PMS". So superior thyroid, ascending pharyngeal, lingual, facial, occipital, posterior auricular, maxillary, and superficial temporal. Frequently the maxillary artery is described as the terminal branch, terminal part of the external carotid. From here, you have the middle meningeal artery coming off maxillary artery that goes into through the foramen spinosum, and that’s the one which lies at the pterion, this part here, that’s middle meningeal.

02:21 Say that again? Please. The maxillary artery is a terminal branch of your external carotid, and from the maxillary you have the middle meningeal artery.

02:33 So these are the main branches in the neck for the external carotid. The internal carotid goes into the brain and for the exam all you need to remember is it’s anastomosing with your basilar arteries coming from the vertebral arteries. So you have anterior cerebral, middle cerebral, posterior cerebral. They’re all coming from the vertebral, internal carotid and forming the circle of Willis.

03:08 Couple of other important things. The phrenic nerve is quite important.