Memorizing the paths of the twelve cranial nerves is a major reason more people don’t become doctors. Calling these pathways “messy” is an understatement. It’s as if a small house were built and wired in 1920 and then as new rooms were added, the electrician simply extended, branched, and rerouted the existing wiring—sometimes snaking circuitous and intensely illogical routes through the house, so that instead of a wire traveling from the circuit box to a bulb in the kitchen, the wire first travels through the attic. If you saw how the house was originally built and then extended, the paths of these wires might make sense, but looking at the modern house, the wiring simply looks like a mess. This is exactly what happened in the course of human evolution—our brain’s wiring is one giant workaround (as Neil Shubin points out in his book Your Inner Fish).
The first step in learning the paths of these cranial nerves is learning their names, which med students commonly do with the use of mnemonics. In order, the nerves are the olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, vestibulocochlear/auditory, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory (spinal accessory), and hypoglossal.
And here are common mnemonics used to remember these nerves:
Ongoing ordeals of trampoline tragedies, America’s Funniest Videos, go video! Saget hour!
On old Olympus’ towering tops a friendly Viking grew vines and hops
Olympic opium occupies troubled triathletes after finishing Vegas gambling vacations still high
Ooo truly there are five very gorgeous vixens awaiting him
Oh once one takes the anatomy final very good vacations are heavenly