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nerve root

One of the two bundles of nerve fibres (dorsal and ventral roots) emerging from the spinal cord that join to form a single segmental (mixed) spinal nerve; some of the cranial nerves are similarly formed by the union of two roots, in particular the fifth or trigeminal nerve; in the case of the eighth cranial (vestibulocochlear) nerve, each of its two components (vestibular root and cochlear root) is referred to as a root even though they do not join each other and their central connections are distinctive, conjoined nerve root, two adjacent nerve root's with the same common origin from the dura mater.