The seventh cranial nerve carries motor fibers for the muscles of facial expression and—in the intermediate nerve, a nerve fascicle emerging separately from the brain stem—gustatory fibers and visceral efferent secretory (parasympathetic) fibers. Both sections of the nerve pass through the internal acoustic meatus and emerge as a neural trunk in the facial canal. The geniculate ganglion is located at the bend in the nerves in the petrous bone. The facial canal then courses via the tympanic cavity and turns caudally toward the stylomastoid foramen, through which the nerve exits from the skull. In the parotid gland, it divides into its end branches (parotid plexus). Before entering the parotid gland, the facial nerve gives off the posterior auricular nerve and branches to the posterior belly of the digastric muscle and to the stylohyoid muscle. From the parotid plexus emerge the temporal branches, zygomatic branches, buccal branches, and marginal mandibular branch and the cervical branch to the platysma. These branches supply the muscles of facial expression.