ABSTRACT
This chapter is intended to cover the anatomical knowledge of nerves that helps trainee anesthetists who are revising for the Primary and Final FRCA exams. The topics of importance to anesthetists are presented under 'structures', 'circulation' and 'nervous system'. The chapter includes a wide range of questions of clinical relevance that are asked in the exam. Peripheral nerves are formed of axons of neurons with cell bodies that reside in the central nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is the unconscious nervous system that deals with a series of involuntary functions controlling a number of actions within organs in the body. The sympathetic nervous system consists of a chain of fused ganglia that lie adjacent to the spinal cord bilaterally. The parasympathetic nervous system consists of preganglionic fibers originating from the brain stem of the motor nuclei of cranial nerves III, VII, IX and X and from the ventral rami of sacral nerves two, three and four (cranio-sacral outflow).
