Functional Territories of Human Dentate Nucleus

Abstract

Anatomical connections link the cerebellar cortex with multiple sensory, motor, association, and paralimbic cerebral areas. The majority of fibers that exit cerebellar cortex synapse in dentate nuclei (DN) before reaching extracerebellar structures such as cerebral cortex, but the functional neuroanatomy of human DN remains largely unmapped. Neuroimaging research has redefined broad categories of functional division in the human brain showing that primary processing, attentional (task positive) processing, and default-mode (task negative) processing are three central poles of neural macroscale functional organization. This broad spectrum of human neural processing categories is represented not only in the cerebral cortex, but also in the thalamus, striatum, and cerebellar cortex. Whether functional organization in DN obeys a similar set of macroscale divisions, and whether DN are yet another compartment of representation of a broad spectrum of human neural processing categories, remains unknown. Here, we show for the first time that human DN are optimally divided into three functional territories as indexed by high spatio-temporal resolution resting-state MRI in 77 healthy humans, and that these three distinct territories contribute uniquely to default-mode, salience-motor, and visual cerebral cortical networks. Our findings provide a systems neuroscience substrate for cerebellar output to influence multiple broad categories of neural control.

Functional Alterations in Cerebellar Functional Connectivity in Anxiety Disorders

“…Sample clinical characteristics are summarized in Table 1. Structural location and FTs of the dentate nuclei as reported in [26]). Red, FT1 = default-mode network FT. Blue, FT2 = salience-motor FT. Green, FT3 = visual FT Informed consent was obtained from legal guardians and assent was obtained from the adolescent.…”

“…As the cerebellum serves a wide range of functions and is suggested to be composed of discrete regions dedicated to unique functions [ 24 , 25 ], we aimed to identify whether alterations in cerebellar functional connectivity in adolescent anxiety are predominantly located within a specific functional territory within the DN or whether these alterations are present in all aspects of the DN. Here, we employed the functional parcellations of DN, the major cerebellar output nuclei, from Guell et al’s [ 26 ] research, which parcellated the DN into three territories with specific functional connections to default-mode, salience-motor, and visual networks in the cerebral cortex using resting-state fMRI scans in a healthy population. We used these three DN functional territories (FTs) as seed regions of interest (Fig.…”

Deep Cerebellar Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of the Dentate Nucleus to Facilitate Standing Balance in Chronic Stroke Survivors—A Pilot Study

“…Importantly, King et al recently showed that lobular boundaries commonly used to summarize functional data do not coincide with functional subdivisions [57]. Here, human dentate nuclei have also been found to be divided into three functional territories; default-mode, salience-motor, and visual brain networks [60]. Therefore, we propose a functional optimization of ctDCS for future clinical studies to maximize behavioral outcomes based on representational models.…”

Intrinsic Functional Connectivity of Dentate Nuclei in Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…In this study, the entire DN (rather that subsections) was used as the seed for RsFc analysis. Future studies may be able to obtain a more nuanced understanding of the role of the DN in ASD by conducting RsFc analysis with smaller FTs within the DN (Guell et al, 2019a). However, given the resolution limitations of current fMRI methods, this may be difficult without higher field strengths or denser array coils.…”