This portion of the artery is surrounded by filaments of the sympathetic nerve, and on its lateral side is the abducent nerve.

The Terminologia Anatomica officially recognizes two different English translations: abducent nerve and abducens nerve.

It communicates with the oculomotor, the trochlear, the ophthalmic and the abducent nerves, and with the ciliary ganglion, and distributes filaments to the wall of the internal carotid artery.

The ophthalmic nerve is joined by filaments from the cavernous plexus of the sympathetic, and communicates with the oculomotor, trochlear, and abducent nerves; it gives off a recurrent (meningeal) filament which passes between the layers of the tentorium.

The 'abducens nerve' or 'abducent nerve' (the 'sixth cranial nerve', also called the 'sixth nerve' or simply 'VI') is a "somatic efferent" nerve that controls the movement of a single muscle, the lateral rectus muscle of the eye.

The sella turcica is bounded posteriorly by a quadrilateral plate of bone, the dorsum sellæ, the upper angles of which are surmounted by the posterior clinoid processes: these afford attachment to the tentorium cerebelli, and below each is a notch for the abducent nerve.

The internal carotid plexus communicates with the trigeminal ganglion, the abducent nerve, and the pterygopalatine ganglion (also named sphenopalatine); it distributes filaments to the wall of the carotid artery, and also communicates with the tympanic branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve.

On either side of the dorsum sellae is a notch for the passage of the abducent nerve, and below the notch a sharp process, the petrosal process, which articulates with the apex of the petrous portion of the temporal bone, and forms the medial boundary of the foramen lacerum.