NBME Gross Anatomy High Yield Practice Test

The internal acoustic meatus is a passage in the petrous part of the temporal bone that transmits the nerves dealing with hearing and balance, along with the facial nerve. The nerve carrying sound and balance information, the vestibulocochlear nerve, traverses this canal to reach the brainstem. Alongside it, the facial nerve also passes through the internal acoustic meatus as it travels within the facial canal before continuing to its exit point. This canal does not carry the optic nerve, which goes through the optic canal; it does not carry the branches of the trigeminal nerve that exit through the superior orbital fissure or foramina like the foramen ovale or foramen rotundum; and it is not involved with the IX and X nerves, which pass through the jugular foramen. Therefore, the nerves that traverse the internal acoustic meatus are the facial nerve and the vestibulocochlear nerve.