Cranial Nerve II (Optic Nerve)

Cranial nerve II is the optic nerve. It is purely a sensory nerve comprising an estimated 1.2 million nerve fibers. It conducts impulses from the rods and cones of the retina in the eye along what is known as the optic chiasma (near the pituitary in the floor of the diencephalon) then through optic tracts to the thalamus then to the visual cortex of the occipital lobes