[TA] a small motor nerve supplying the lateral rectus muscle of the eye; its origin is in the facial colliculus of the tegmentum of the pons just below the surface of the rhomboid fossa. It emerges from the brain in the fissure between the medulla oblongata and the posterior border of the pons (medullopontine sulcus); it enters the dura of the clivus and passes through the cavernous sinus, entering the orbit through the superior orbital fissure. SYN: nervus abducens [CN VI] [TA], abducens nerve*, abducent (2), sixth cranial nerve [CN VI].