The skull is the ossified, bony structure that encloses and protects the brain, internal extensions of sensory organs, and some facial structures. The skull is usually considered to consist of a cranial section (the cranium) and a facial region.

The cranium is a large rounded, dome-shaped region of the skull that is composed of paired left and right frontal bones, parietal bones, temporal bones, and an unpaired occipital bone that forms the posterior base of the skull.

The bones of the cranium are fused by sutures—joints that run jaggedly along the interface between the bones. At birth, the sutures are soft, broad, and cartilaginous. This flexibility allows the skull to grow as the child matures. The sutures eventually fuse and become rigid and ossified near the end of puberty or early in adulthood. The coronal suture unites the frontal bone with the parietal bones. In anatomical...