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The lateral pterygoid plate of the sphenoid (or lateral lamina of pterygoid process) is broad, thin, and everted and forms the lateral part of a horseshoe like process that extends from the inferior aspect of the sphenoid bone, and serves as the origin of the lateral pterygoid muscle, which functions in allowing the mandible to move in a lateral and medial direction, or from side-to-side.
The sphenoid bone [note 1] is an unpaired bone of the neurocranium. It is situated in the middle of the skull towards the front, in front of the basilar part of the occipital bone. The sphenoid bone is one of the seven bones that articulate to form the orbit. Its shape somewhat resembles that of a butterfly, bat or wasp with its wings extended.
The lateral surfaces of the body are united with the greater wings of the sphenoid and the medial pterygoid plates.. Above the attachment of each greater wing is a broad groove, curved something like the italic letter f; it lodges the internal carotid artery and the cavernous sinus, and is named the carotid sulcus.
The pterygoid hamulus is a hook-like process at the lower extremity of the medial pterygoid plate of the sphenoid bone of the skull. It is the superior origin of the pterygomandibular raphe , and the levator veli palatini muscle .
The greater wings of the sphenoid are two strong processes of bone, which arise from the sides of the body, and are curved upward, laterally, and backward; the posterior part of each projects as a triangular process that fits into the angle between the squamous and the petrous part of the temporal bone and presents at its apex a downward-directed process, the spine of sphenoid bone.
The pterygoid is a paired bone forming part of the palate of many vertebrates, behind the palatine bones. [ 1 ] It is a flat and thin lamina, united to the medial side of the pterygoid process of the sphenoid bone, and to the perpendicular lamina of the palatine bone.
In the pterygoid processes of the sphenoid, above the pterygoid fossa is a small, oval, shallow depression, the scaphoid fossa, which gives origin to the tensor veli palatini. It is not the same as and has to be distinguished from the scaphoid fossa of the external ear or pinna .
The pterygoid canal (also vidian canal) is a passage in the sphenoid bone of the skull leading from just anterior to the foramen lacerum in the middle cranial fossa to the pterygopalatine fossa. [ 1 ]