The motor facial nucleus, one on hay. and one on the left. Side in the pons, contains the motor neurons for the facial muscles (the mimic musculature), for the stirrup muscle (M. stapedius) of the middle ear, for the posterior abdomen of M. digastricus and for M. stylohyoideus.
The nucleus, which lies in front of and slightly below the abducens nucleus, first sends its axons backwards upwards towards and past the abducens nucleus, which rounds after which the axon bundle turns 180 degrees (the inner knee of the facial nerve) and pulls forward, downward, outward to leave the brainstem on the border between the pons and the medulla oblongata, in the so-called pons angle. The bundle of threads then forms the "motor root" of the facial nerve .
When the bundle of wire rounds the abducens nucleus, an elevation is formed in the floor of 4.de ventricle: colliculus facialis.
The nucleus receives an extensive influx of cortico-nuclear filaments from the primary motor cortex of the opposite hemisphere.
The motor facial nucleus is embedded in the formatio reticularis , which probably contains pattern generators for various standardized facial expressions, such as joy, sadness, horror.