Sciatic nerve Sciatic nerve The sciatic nerve (also called "ischiadic nerve", "ischiatic nerve") is a large nerve in humans and other animals. It begins in the lower back and runs through the buttock and down the lower limb. It is the longest and widest single nerve in the human body, going from the top of the leg to the foot on the posterior aspect. The sciatic nerve provides the connection to the nervous system for nearly the whole of the skin of the leg, the muscles of the back of the thigh, and those of the leg and foot. It is derived
Nerve supply to the skin the kind of sensory inputs which project to a specific region of the primary somatosensory cortex. Groups of nerve terminals located in the different layers of the skin are categorized depending on whether the skin is hairy, nonhairy, or an exposed mucous membrane. The hairy parts of the body such as the forearm or the leg have two groups of nerve endings: those that end along with the hair follicles, and also with the arborizations of unmyelinated axons which are referred to as “free” nerve endings because they are served by both myelinated and unmyelinated axons. Nonhairy skin, such as