Lower limb
Obturator nerve
Nervus obturatorius
- Origin
- Arises from the anterior divisions of the lumbar plexus anterior rami L2, L3, L4
- Insertion
- Passes along the lateral pelvic wall, exits through the obturator canal into the medial thigh, dividing into anterior and posterior branches around adductor brevis
- Function
- Motor to medial thigh adductors (obturator externus, adductor longus, brevis, gracilis, and adductor part of magnus); sensory to medial distal thigh skin and articular branches to hip and knee
- Innervation
- Mixed sensorimotor nerve driving hip adduction and referred hip-knee pain
- Movement & chain
- Provides forceful hip adduction and stabilizes the pelvis in stance phase
- Palpation
- Not palpable through deep pelvic/medial thigh structures
- Clinical
- Howship-Romberg sign (inner thigh pain relieved by hip flexion in strangulated obturator hernia); adductor spasticity in cerebral palsy; injured during radical pelvic lymphadenectomy
- Segmental innervation
- L2, L3, L4 spinal segments
- In clinical practice
- Obturator nerve block administered during transurethral resection of bladder tumors (TURBT) to prevent dangerous adductor jerking and bladder wall perforation
- Region in the model
- Lower limb