Bridging neuroanatomy and clinical reasoning: a collaborative cranial nerve matching activity

Anatomical education presents ongoing challenges in helping students master complex content while integrating it with clinical relevance. Neuroanatomy is particularly difficult due to its intricacy and abstract nature. To address these challenges, this study evaluated the effectiveness of a team-based matching activity designed to integrate anatomical, radiological, and clinical elements of the 12 cranial nerves during the final week of a 6-wk Nervous System course. First-year medical students’ performance on summative practical questions and their perceptions of the session were assessed. Students in the intervention cohort (Class of 2028) who participated in the session demonstrated significantly higher mean scores on six identical cranial nerve-related practical questions (0.93 ± 0.01) compared with a control cohort (Class of 2025) that did not participate (0.88 ± 0.02; P = 0.0013). Survey responses from the intervention cohorts reflected high engagement, clarity, alignment with objectives, and perceived integration of anatomical and clinical knowledge. The data suggest that a structured, team-based matching activity is a feasible and effective innovation for supporting neuroanatomy-clinical integration in early medical education.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This activity bridges neuroanatomy and clinical reasoning through a collaborative matching exercise linking cranial nerve function to patient presentations. Designed for preclerkship students, it reinforces spatial understanding and diagnostic reasoning while encouraging peer discussion and reflection. The approach provides a low-resource, adaptable framework to integrate basic and clinical sciences.