What way sympathetic fibers reach the tongue?
1. Lingual nerve
2. Maxillary artery
3. Hypoglossal nerve
4. Lingual artery
5. Glossopharyngeal nerve

The correct answer here is A (well, 1 as the answers are numbered), the lingual nerve. The previous answer goes into a long description, so I’m going to simplify that. Sympathetic nerves are concerned with making sure that the arrangement of the body is correct and that it works correctly (also known as the vasculature of the body).

The biggest thing to make sure of is that the arteries that carry the blood are covered and protected in case of damage to the body. This is where the lingual nerve comes in. The lingual artery is the artery that flows to the tongue, so in keeping things easy to understand, the scientific community calls this nerve the sympathetic nerve. That’s all there is to it, really.

Lingual artery-remember-all over the body, the vasculature is the number one target of sympathetic nerves. sympathetic nerves help to constrict the vasculature, and they are found covering arteries in periarterial plexuses. in the head, sympathetics travel to targets on vessels. so, you know that the sympathetic nerves are coming to the tongue on an artery-now, you just need to determine what artery goes to the tongue. and that artery is the lingual artery.the lingual artery is the second branch off the anterior side of the external carotid artery. it travels in the floor of the mouth and supplies blood to the tongue, suprahyoid muscles, and the palatine tonsil. this is the artery going to the targeted area, so thats the answer youre looking for. the maxillary artery is one of the 2 terminal branches of the external carotid artery. it supplies blood to the deep face and infratemporal fossa. it is not going to the tongue.as far as the nerves go... the lingual nerve is a branch of v3, the mandibular division of the trigeminal nerve. it supplies general sensation (touch and temperature) to the anterior 2/3 of the tongue. (taste sensation for the anterior 2/3 of the tongue arrives at the tongue by way of the lingual nerve, but the original fibers for taste came from the chorda tympani, a branch of cn vii.) the hypoglossal nerve (cn xii) provides motor innervation to the muscles of the tongue. the glossopharyngeal nerve (cn ix) provides taste sensation and general sensation to the posterior 1/3 of the tongue.