Nerve plexus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gray's Fig. 838 - The right sympathetic chain and its connections with the thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic plexuses.

A nerve plexus is a network of intersecting nerves. They combine sets of spinal nerves that serve the same area of the body into one large grouped nerve. There are several in the body, including:

Cervical plexus - serves the head, neck and shoulders
Brachial plexus - serves the chest, shoulders, arms and hands
Lumbar plexus - serves the back, abdomen, groin, thighs, knees, and calves
Sacral plexus - serves the pelvis, buttocks, genitals, thighs, calves, and feet
Solar plexus - serves internal organs

Since the Lumbar and Sacral plexus are interconnected, they are sometimes referred to as the Lumbosacral plexus. The nerves that serve the chest are the only ones that do not originate from a plexus.