page_title: Spinal nerve
section_title: Sacral nerves
hierarchical_section_title: Spinal nerve / Regional nerves / Sacral nerves
caption_attribution_description: Plan of sacral and pudendal plexuses.
context_page_description: A spinal nerve is a mixed nerve, which carries motor, sensory, and autonomic signals between the spinal cord and the body. In the human body there are 31 pairs of spinal nerves, one on each side of the vertebral column. These are grouped into the corresponding cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal regions of the spine. There are eight pairs of cervical nerves, twelve pairs of thoracic nerves, five pairs of lumbar nerves, five pairs of sacral nerves, and one pair of coccygeal nerves. The spinal nerves are part of the peripheral nervous system.
context_section_description: The sacral nerves are the five pairs of spinal nerves which exit the sacrum at the lower end of the vertebral column. The roots of these nerves begin inside the vertebral column at the level of the L1 vertebra, where the cauda equina begins, and then descend into the sacrum.
  There are five paired sacral nerves, half of them arising through the sacrum on the left side and the other half on the right side. Each nerve emerges in two divisions: one division through the anterior sacral foramina and the other division through the posterior sacral foramina.
  The nerves divide into branches and the branches from different nerves join with one another, some of them also joining with lumbar or coccygeal nerve branches. These anastomoses of nerves form the sacral plexus and the lumbosacral plexus. The branches of these plexus give rise to nerves that supply much of the hip, thigh, leg and foot.
  The sacral nerves have both afferent and efferent fibers, thus they are responsible for part of the sensory perception and the movements of the lower extremities of the human body. From the S2, S3 and S4 arise the pudendal nerve and parasympathetic fibers whose electrical potential supply the descending colon and rectum, urinary bladder and genital organs. These pathways have both afferent and efferent fibers and, this way, they are responsible for conduction of sensory information from these pelvic organs to the central nervous system (CNS) and motor impulses from the CNS to the pelvis that control the movements of these pelvic organs.
caption: Plan of sacral and pudendal plexuses
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