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