the.com/foramen
a hole in your bone that's actually doing critical infrastructure work for your nerves and vessels.
means A natural opening or passage in a bone (or other body structure) through which nerves and blood vessels pass.
from Straight from Latin foramen, "a hole, an opening," built on forare, "to bore or pierce" — the same drilling sense that gives us "perforate." The Romans were literally naming a thing that had been bored through, and anatomists kept the word, so every skull's foramen magnum is, plainly, its "great hole."
- latin roots
- Means simply an opening or aperture
- skull base
- Foramen magnum lets the spinal cord exit
- plural form
- Becomes foramina, not foramens
- heart hole
- Foramen ovale lets fetal blood bypass lungs
- closes up
- That heart opening seals shortly after birth
foramen magnum — largest opening in human skull at base, allows spinal cord passage
foramen ovale — opening in fetal heart that closes after birth, present in all unborn humans
foramen of monro — passage connecting lateral ventricles to third ventricle in brain
foramen rotundum — opening in sphenoid bone carrying maxillary nerve branch in skull base