Main skull bones - frontal, parietal, occipital, ethmoid, sphenoid and squamous temporal
Main sutures - coronal, sagittal, lambdoid and squamosal
Injury to the pterion area may lead to formation of extradural haematoma due to injury of the middle meningeal artery
The brain is located inside the cranial vault, a space formed by bones of the skull and skull base. Everything inside the cranial vault is 'intra-cranial' and everything outside is 'extra-cranial'.
Skull bones
Bones of the skull and skull base - frontal, parietal, occipital, ethmoid, sphenoid and temporal bones - all ossify separately and gradually become united at the skull sutures.
The skull has inner and outer tables of cortical bone with central cancellous bone called 'diploe'.
Note the appearance of the skull sutures which are jagged - not to be confused with fractures which are typically straight
Bone windows
Bones of the skull are assessed viewing the 'bone window' CT images
Note that no detail of brain structure is provided on these window settings
Sutures
The main sutures of the skull are the coronal, sagittal, lambdoid and squamosal sutures. The metopic suture (or frontal suture) is variably present in adults.
Coronal suture - unites the frontal bone with the parietal bones
Sagittal suture - unites the 2 parietal bones in the midline
Lambdoid suture - unites the parietal bones with the occipital bone
Squamosal suture - unites the squamous portion of the temporal bone with the parietal bones
Metopic suture - (if present) unites the 2 fontal bones
