What Is the Anatomy of the Skull?

The skull is located above the spine and consists of 23 flat and irregular bones of different shapes and sizes (three ear bones of the middle ear are not included). Except for the mandible and hyoid bone, the other bones are firmly connected to each other by seams or cartilage, and play a role in protecting and supporting the brain, sensory organs, and the initial part of the digestive and respirator.

The skull is located above the spine and consists of 23 flat and irregular bones of different shapes and sizes (three ear bones of the middle ear are not included). Except for the mandible and hyoid bone, the other bones are firmly connected to each other by seams or cartilage, and play a role in protecting and supporting the brain, sensory organs, and the initial part of the digestive and respirator.

Human and vertebrate head skeleton.

Using the line connecting the upper edge of the orbital and the upper edge of the outer ear as the dividing line, the skull is divided into two parts, the brain skull and the facial skull. The brain is located in the posterior and upper part of the skull, including paired parietal and temporal bones, unpaired frontal bones, sphenoid bones, occipital bones and ethmoid bones, a total of 8 pieces, which surround the cranial cavity to accommodate the brain. The facial skull is the anterior and inferior part of the skull, including pairs of maxilla, sacrum, nasal bone, lacrimal bone, sacrum, and turbinate bone, unpaired vulva, mandible, hyoid bone, a total of 15 pieces, forming the orbit and nasal cavity , Oral and facial bone scaffolds.

Chinese name

skull

Foreign name

skull

Number of blocks

23 pieces

Location

Above the spine

Features

Protection and support

Attributes

skeleton

Zhuyin

Pinyin

Lu Gu

Skull anatomy

The human skull is composed of 23 bones and can support and protect important organs such as the brain. Except for the mandible and hyoid bone, each bone is connected by a seam or cartilage, which is an inactive connection. The skull can be divided into a brain skull and a facial skull, the former surrounding the cranial cavity, the latter constituting the orbital, nasal and oral bone scaffolds. There are 8 brain skulls; including a frontal bone in the front, a occipital bone in the rear, and 2 above Parietal bone, one temporal bone on each side, one ethmoid in the center of the front of the skull base and one sphenoid bone in the middle of the skull base. The facial skull is composed of 15 bones: above the mouth, there is a maxillary bone on the left and right, a pair of nasal bones on the upper medial side, a pair of lacrimal bones on the back, a pair of raised cheekbones on the top and outside, and a pair of patella on the back . There is a pair of inferior turbinate bones that extend into the nasal cavity on the medial side. The mandible is a cranial bone that forms a joint and can move. In addition, there is a free bone mass called the hyoid bone.

Composition of each structure

The skull is composed of two parts, the brain and the skull. The brain and skull are divided into the skull and skull base.

(1) The skull is composed of an outer plate, a plate barrier and an inner plate, including the frontal bone, parietal bone, occipital bone, temporal bone, and part of the sacrum and sphenoid bone. Scaly seams join together. The inner surface of the skull is depressed, and the indentation is composed of intracerebral gyrus, arachnoid grain, venous sinus and meningeal blood vessel indentation.

(2) Skull base bone The inner surface of the skull base is uneven, and the sphenoid ridge and rock bone ridge are bounded from front to back to form a three-level stepped structure, which are called anterior, middle and posterior cranial fossa.

The central small part of the anterior cranial fossa is the ethmoid sieve plate, the large parts on both sides are the frontal orbital plate, and the posterior part is the sphenoid winglet, which houses the frontal lobe.

The middle cranial fossa is composed of sphenoid body and sphenoid wing, which is butterfly-shaped, and is divided into a small central part (saddle area) and two larger and depressed outer parts (accommodating the temporal lobe). The saddle is located in the middle of the middle cranial fossa, above the sphenoid body. The anterior midline protrusion is called the saddle nodule, and the two sides are the anterior bed process. The lower part is the optic crisscross groove and the optic canal. It is the cranial outlet of the optic nerve. The pituitary pituitary fossa, the upper protrusion of the posterior bone plate is called the saddle dorsum, and the outer upper corners of the two sides are posterior bed processes. There are many bone holes and fissures in the middle cranial fossa to communicate with the extracranial, and it is a channel of nerves and blood vessels, including: supraorbital fissure: there are oculomotor nerve, pulley nerve, abductor nerve and trigeminal nerve branch and superior eye vein Pass; round holes, oval holes and spinous holes: arranged from the front to the back of the sphenoid wing, passing through the second and third branches of the trigeminal nerve and the middle meningeal artery respectively; Rupture holes: located in the sphenoid and rock Between the tips, the internal carotid artery and sympathetic plexus pass.

The posterior cranial fossa is mostly composed of the occipital bone, and the front wall of the two sides is behind the rock bone, which houses the cerebellum, pontine and medulla. The center of the fossa is the foramen magnum, where the cranial cavity is connected to the spinal canal, the medullary meridian is connected to the spinal cord, and the vertebral artery and the cervical nerve branch pass through. The front of the foramen magnum is a slope, and there are circular bulges on both sides of the lower end of the slope as jugular nodules. There is an inner ear hole behind the rock bone ridge for the facial nerve, auditory nerve, and labyrinthine arteries and veins. The occipital protuberance is where the sinus sink is located, and the transverse sinus starts from both sides of the sinus sink and goes to the back of the upper edge of the temporal bone rock and continues to the sigmoid sinus. There are internal jugular veins, glossopharyngeal, vagus and accessory nerves passing through the jugular foramen.

Common Skull Diseases and Treatment

Skull fracture refers to the structural changes of the skull caused by the violent action of the skull, including the interruption and fragmentation of the continuity of the bone, and the direct sign is the continuous interruption of the inner and outer plates of the bone.

Advantages of CT examination: Skull fractures can occur in any part of the skull, with the parietal bone the most. The rest are the frontal bone, temporal bone, and occipital bone. CT is a transversal image with high density resolution and no overlap. Therefore, comminuted and depressed fractures are more obvious than linear fractures. If indirect signs of skull base fractures are found, and thin-layer scanning is added at the same time, it is of great significance for the diagnosis of skull base fractures and the comprehensive judgment and treatment of craniocerebral trauma. Due to the complex and irregular morphology of the skull base, there are many natural gaps and channels, so it is still difficult to display non-displaced linear fractures. Continuous and detailed observation should be combined with the reconstructed thin-layer images, especially based on the three-dimensional reconstructed images The multi-level, multi-directional, multi-angle rich information provided provides a reliable basis for the diagnosis of skull fractures, and avoids misdiagnosis as much as possible.

Emergency skull treatment

There are mainly the following aspects: 1. If it is an open skull fracture or the brain tissue is exposed, attention should be paid to preventing infection. Hair can be cut off within 5 cm of the wound and gently covered with sterile gauze. Do not remove the dirt inside the wound without permission to avoid spreading the infection. 2, the treatment of cerebrospinal fluid must be careful, do not block the nasal cavity and the ear canal, nor rinse with water or drip drops into the ear and nose, but let it flow by itself. Because the cerebrospinal fluid and blood flow through the unclean nasal cavity and ear canal, they are contaminated. If they are blocked with cotton and other materials, the fluid will easily flow into the brain and cause intracranial infections, leading to serious consequences such as meningitis and brain abscess. death. At the same time, patients should be warned not to choke and cough hard, not to rub or touch the external ear canal, rinse mouth, and keep the mouth clean. 3. The patient's head should be high, and the head of the bed can be raised 15 to 30 degrees to prevent intracranial infection or gas accumulation. 4. No matter where you are, you must do everything possible to send the injured person to the hospital for treatment as soon as possible.

Skull skull injury

It is usually accompanied by brain damage. Skull injury, fracture healing takes about 3 months. In terms of early healing, there is no good way for western medicine treatment. Patients with obvious open head injury should undergo immediate surgical treatment. The skull base fracture with cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea and ear leak were treated conservatively for 2 weeks, and the symptoms disappeared. The treatment effect was not good. Cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea repair was performed. For closed head injury, surgery or conservative treatment were given separately. For patients with skull fracture and simple epidural hematoma, no coma before surgery and CT showed no significant shift in the midline structure, hematoma removal or cranioplasty was performed. Patients with hematoma coma before surgery, CT showing obvious shift of midline structure, or patients with subdural hematoma, brain contusion, hematoma removal and decompression of bone flap; simple skull depression fracture of non-functional site, small area and depth No more than 1cm, no symptoms of cranial hypertension, conservative treatment; simple skull line fracture, conservative treatment. Postoperative and conservatively treated patients were treated with antibiotics, dehydrating agents, neurotrophic drugs, and water and electrolyte acid-base balance.

Skull treatment

Oral or nasal feeding with traditional Chinese medicine in the early stage can promote the hematoma mechanization, make the granulation tissue form fibrous connectives in advance, and then turn into cartilage, and then the cartilage cells undergo proliferation, degeneration, and calcification to achieve early healing of the fracture. Craniocerebral injury, Western medicine has no effective treatment for primary brain injury. Based on conservative or post-operative Western medicine treatment, the treatment group plus oral or nasal feeding and acupuncture treatment with traditional Chinese medicine can play a role in removing stasis and removing heat, bone damage, removing stasis and refreshing the brain, and greatly improves the prognosis. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, after skull and brain injury, fractures and tendons, blood from the meridian, condense into stasis, stagnation in the menstruation, and stasis. If the blood is not alive and the stasis does not go away, the bone cannot be taken. Blood stasis does not go away, blocks the brain veins, blinds the consciousness, but faints. Therefore, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture treatment can clear the heat and refresh the brain, and remove stasis and open consciousness.