Median nerve <br />Median Nerve <br />The median nerve enters the palm by passing behind <br />the flexor retinaculum and through the carpal tunnel. It <br />immediately divides into lateral and medial branches. <br />The muscular branch takes a recurrent course around <br />the lower border of the flexor retinaculum and lies about <br />one fingerbreadth distal to the tubercle of the scaphoid; it <br />supplies the muscles of the thenar eminence (the abductor <br />pollicis brevis, the flexor pollicis brevis, and the opponens <br />pollicis) and the 1st lumbrical muscle. <br />The cutaneous branches supply the palmar aspect of <br />the lateral three and a half fingers and the distal half of the <br />dorsal aspect of each finger. One of these branches also supplies <br />the second lumbrical muscle. <br />Note also that the palmar cutaneous branch of the <br />median nerve given off in the front of the forearm (Fig. 9.55) <br />crosses anterior to the flexor retinaculum and supplies
