Introduction: The intracranial part of the optic nerve is perfused by the upper hypophyseal and ophthalmic arteries. Standard anatomical textbooks have not dealt with the vasculature of this clinicaly important part of the central nervous system. Objective: To study morphological characteristics of perioptical arterial vascularization of the intracranial part of optic nerve. Material and methods: The study was conducted on 18 whole brains of both sexes (11 male and 7 female), from the age of 51-78 years, with no signs of changes in the structures of the central nervous system. The vasculature of the optic nerves was microdissected and examined under the stereoscopic microscope after injecting their arteries with a 10% mixture of India ink and gelatin, and fixation in a 5% solution of formalin. Results: Intracranial segment of the optic nerve was richly supplied, from both, the ventral and the dorsal side, strictly with penetrating branches which come from the pial arterial network originating from the internal carotid artery and the superior hypophyseal artery for the ventral nervous surface, and from the anterior cerebral artery for the dorsal nervous surface. Conclusion: In accordance with the objective, and based on the obtained results, we confirmed that intracranial segment of the optic nerve has a rich and very delicate vascular network.

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