Morphologic and imaging studies of duplicate optic canals in dry adult human skulls

Three dry adult human skulls, two with bilateral and one with unilateral du plication of the optic canal were found. Their gross morphologic features w ere studied. Optic canals were separated by a septum of variable thickness dividing the posterior part of the canal into a large canal in the usual po sition and a smaller one inferior to it. The skull with unilateral duplicat ion of the right side had a bony bar forming the carotico-clinoid canal. On e of the skulls was disarticulated and its sphenoid had bilaterally duplica ted optic canals divided by thin septa, both having a slit. Conventional ra diography and CT scans for the optic canal were performed on two of these s kulls but not on the disarticulated bone, and the imaging representations o f these features were correlated with the anatomic findings on the dry skul l.