The core, one on the right side and one on the left side, is located in the upper part of the pons. It receives the high-resolution mechanoreceptionn from the face, eye sockets, nasal cavity and oral cavity. The nucleus can, with some reservations, be said to be an equivalent of the backstring cores.
The sensory main nucleus of the triplet nerve contacts the VPM nucleus of the thalamus on the opposite hemisphere of the brain (crossed connection) via the lemniscus trigeminalis and the VPM nucleus on the same side (uncrossed connection) via the smaller tractus trigeminothalamicus dorsalis.