Cerebellar involvement in cognitive flexibility

Bartolo, Paola De; Mandolesi, Laura; Federico, Francesca; Foti, Francesca; Cutuli, Debora; Gelfo, Francesca; Petrosini, Laura

doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2009.03.008

Cited by 35 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The tendency of HCbed rats to visit (and revisit) the tray belonging to the same cluster can be also interpreted as a tendency to repeat the same behavior or as a difficulty to shifting from one setting to another or as a deficit in response inhibition, abilities demonstrated to be affected in cerebellar subjects [23,45,46].…”

Section: Exploration Of Cluster Configurationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cerebellar engagement in the high-order processes falling under the umbrella term of executive functions, such as planning, sequencing, working memory, response inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, has been recently advanced [46,53,54]. In particular, the tendency to perseverate and the impossibility to inhibit patently wrong responses as well as the lack of flexibility in changing behavior might be due to impairment in planning intentional strategies, that is, in the ability to access and use different strategies effectively to change behavior in accordance with the context [23,55].…”

Section: Trajectory Directness Visit Correctness Perseverationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that in rats even a unilateral cerebellar lesion is able to affect a large range of cognitive functions [1,3,6,[19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Cerebellar Damage Loosens the Strategic Use of the Spatial Structure of the Search Space

et al. 2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The influence of a hemicerebellar lesion on the exploration of environments with different spatial distributions of multiple rewards was analyzed. Hemicerebellectomized (HCbed) and intact rats were submitted to a search task in which they had to explore nine food trays in an open field, avoiding repeated visits. Trays were spatially arranged in four configurations: cross, 3 x 3 matrix, circle, and three clusters of three trays each. Lesioned and intact rats' performances improved in all configurations used. However, the explorative activity of the HCbed animals differed from that of intact rats. Lesioned animals spent more time, made more errors, displayed lower search efficiency, exhibited shorter final spans, and traveled longer distances. They tended to perseverate and to neglect some trays. The cerebellar damage differentially influenced performances as a specific effect of the susceptibility of the configurations to being explored in a principled way. In the cross configuration that had strong spatial constraints, both groups made their lowest number of errors. In the circle configuration, the altered explorative strategies of lesioned animals made extremely demanding the acquisition of the task of searching multiple rewards, in spite of the attempt of favoring their altered procedures through an appropriate spatial arrangement. Since the procedural impairment elicited by cerebellar damage affected the central exploration, the matrix configuration was the most difficult configuration to be explored by the HCbed rats. The poor performances in the cluster configuration indicated that chunking was a strategy of relative strength in rats in general and in HCbed rats in particular.

show abstract

Section: Exploration Of Cluster Configurationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Trajectory Directness Visit Correctness Perseverationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Cerebellar Damage Loosens the Strategic Use of the Spatial Structure of the Search Space

et al. 2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Using a maze procedure, Mandolesi et al (2001) pointed out a behavioral inflexibility in hemicerebellectomized animals which perseverated with the same strategy without modifying it even after an error. Similarly, hemicerebellectomized rats were significantly impaired in adapting to ever-changing response rules, being unable to develop "learning to learn" ability as control rats did (De Bartolo et al 2009). The present results bring new arguments to the literature, showing that interpositus nuclei are a key node within the cerebellum, necessary for the development of a "learning to learn" capability, and thus for normal behavioral adaptation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cerebellar deep nuclei involvement in cognitive adaptation and automaticity

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To determine the role of the interpositus nuclei of cerebellum in rule-based learning and optimization processes, we studied (1) successive transfers of an initially acquired response rule in a cross maze and (2) behavioral strategies in learning a simple response rule in a T maze in interpositus lesioned rats (neurotoxic or electrolytic lesions). Even though lesioned animals showed no impairment in learning the initial stimulus-response association, they had difficulties in transferring the acquired adapted response rule, and in optimizing their response strategy. These results add information on the role of interpositus nuclei in adaptation to environmental changes.Over the past decades, cerebellar circuits have been shown to play a major role in the process by which an action becomes automatic with practice in humans (Jenkins et al. 1994;Doyon et al. 1998Doyon et al. , 2002Hubert et al. 2007), and thus in the automatic execution of over-learned cognitive routines. Moreover, whereas the initial acquisition guided by reward or other feedback stimuli seems to be normal in cerebellar patients, reversal learning or transfer of an acquired response rule to a new task is impaired Ramnani 2008, 2011;Thoma et al. 2008). In animal models of cerebellar dysfunction, rule-learning deficits and impaired optimization were similarly observed. A deficit in learning the procedural component of spatial tasks was pointed out after hemicerebellectomy (for reviews, see Petrosini et al. 1998;Rondi-Reig and Burguière 2004) or in L7-PKCI transgenic mice (Burguière et al. 2005). Deep nuclei lesions were shown to play a particular role in acquisition and reversal learning (Joyal et al. 2001). More recently, lesions of the interpositus nuclei were shown to prevent the development of habit-based behavior with overtraining, without altering the initial goal-directed behavior, suggesting that deep nuclei are part of the network involved specifically in optimization processes and habit formation (Callu et al. 2007). Similarly, using the mouse mutants L7-PKCI, Burguière et al. (2010) showed that prefrontal cortex-Purkinje cell long-term depression (LTD) is not required for the initial goal-directed behavior but is required for optimization of motor responses.To determine the role of the cerebellum in rule-based learning and optimization processes, we first compared interpositus lesioned rats (IN) with Sham-operated rats in learning a simple response rule in a T maze and then transferring this rule to different maze configurations. Second,, we used Packard and McGaugh's paradigm (1996) in which animals (IN lesioned and Sham) were trained in a T maze to determine the preferential strategy by which they resolved the task after training or overtraining. Specifically, in the first experiment, bilateral electrolytic lesions of interpositus nuclei were stereologically performed, whereas in the second experiment, the IN lesioned group received bilateral microinjections of Colchicine. Details of surgery methods have been reported previously (Callu...

show abstract

“…Notoriously, behavioral flexibility is a complex process mediated by an array of brain areas including also the cerebellum. (Thoma et al, 2008;De Bartolo et al, 2009;Dickson et al, 2010;Dickson et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Involvement of the cerebellum in cocaine-induced memory

Gas¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PREFACEBecause of its role in drug-seeking, consumption and addictive behavior, there is a growing interest in identifying the neural circuits and molecular mechanisms underlying the formation, maintenance and retrieval of drug-induced memories. However, very few studies have focused on brain areas beyond the corticostriatal-limbic circuitry. Despite the growing evidence confirming the involvement of the cerebellum in drug-induced alterations, this structure has been traditionally disregarded in the addiction field Miquel et al, 2016).The general aim of the present research is to address wether the cerebellum is part of the neuronal systems that sustains the plasticity mechanisms underlying drug-induced conditioned memories. We have focused our research in an attempt to clarify if the cerebellum is involved in the acquisition and storage of drug memories. Although previous scattered reports described the involvement of the cerebellum in drug-related memories, this is the first attempt to address a detailed functional analysis about the issue.The present doctoral thesis contains three different chapters. The first two include two investigations that have been already published (Carbo-gas et al., 2014ab), and the third is one currently under revision. In the first chapter, Involving the cerebellum in cocaineinduced memory: pattern of cFos expression in mice trained to acquire conditioned preference for cocaine, we explored the pattern of neuronal activation as revealed by cFos immunoreactivity of mice trained to develop conditioned preference for an olfactory stimulus paired with cocaine. In the second one, entitled Cerebellar hallmarks of conditioned preference for cocaine, we used the same behavioral task of the first study in order to further extend the description of cFos expression patterns in cerebellar circuitry, including now the major inputs and one of the output nuclei of the cerebellum. 9In the last chapter, Cerebellar perineuronal nets in cocaine-induced Pavlovian memory:site does matter, we accomplished a broad analysis of perineuronal nets (PNNs) expression of cerebellar vermis. First, we analysed an outbred mouse strain trained to acquire preference for olfactory stimuli associated with cocaine. Second, α6Cre-Cacna1a mice were used to test if a reduction in the glutamate release of parallel fibres to Purkinje dendrites would alter the acquisition of cocainepreference conditioning and the expression of PNNs in the cerebellum.After the presentation of the chapters, there is a section where summarised findings, strengths and pitfalls as well as future directions are provided. References can be also found at the end of the present document.Finally, we conclude this thesis with an appendix. This document is formed by research not finished yet, but that may be of great relevance to understand the role of the cerebellum in addictive disorders. In that appendix, we explored the effect of a focal lesion in the dorsal cerebellar cortex (Lobule VIII) on the acquisition of food selfadministration. This researc...

show abstract

Cerebellar involvement in cognitive flexibility

Cited by 35 publications

References 47 publications

Cerebellar Damage Loosens the Strategic Use of the Spatial Structure of the Search Space

Cerebellar Damage Loosens the Strategic Use of the Spatial Structure of the Search Space

Cerebellar deep nuclei involvement in cognitive adaptation and automaticity

Involvement of the cerebellum in cocaine-induced memory

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About