mental foramen

The mental foramen is one of two holes ('foramina') located on the anterior surface of the mandible. It permits passage of the mental nerve and vessels. The mental foramen descends slightly in edentulous individuals. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the mental foramen is

The mental foramen is one of two holes ('foramina') located on the anterior surface of the mandible. It permits passage of the mental nerve and vessels. The mental foramen descends slightly in edentulous individuals. The atlas records it as a bone at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the mental foramen is

It sits in the head, within the skeletal and digestive systems. Not positioned individually. Drawn inside the structure this dataset says contains it — the containment is asserted, the exact spot within it is not.

What the mental foramen connects to

The atlas records 4 typed relationships for it, across 3 kinds of connection. part of mandible.

Supply and innervation

This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the mental foramen. Only a minority of structures carry those edges here, so an empty answer means nothing has been recorded — not that there is nothing to record.

Also called

Also recorded as mental foramina, foramen mentale and foramen mentalis. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0006812, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

Part of: mandible.
A kind of: foramen of skull.
transports: mental artery and mental nerve.

Questions

Where is the mental foramen?

What does the mental foramen connect to?

Part of: mandible.

Is the mental foramen the same in other species?

Leumas holds the same relationship vocabulary for every species it carries, so where another dataset records this structure you can put the two side by side on /compare.