Involvement of multiple functionally distinct cerebellar regions in visual discrimination: a human functional imaging study

Abstract

We investigated the contribution of the human cerebellum to cerebral function during visual discrimination using PET and fMRI. The cognitive task was a successive discrimination of shades of brown with a parametric variation of the stimulus presentation rate and a constant task difficulty. The successive color discrimination task was contrasted to a dimming detection control task, with identical retinal input but with double the number of motor responses. Three sets of activated cerebellar and cerebral regions were observed: rate-dependent and rate-independent color discrimination networks and a motor-and-detection network. The rate-dependent color discrimination network included both an anterior and a posterior activation site in lobule-VI of the two lateral cerebellar hemispheres, whereas the rate-independent network involved a bilateral activation site in lateral Crus-I. Cerebellar sites of the motor-and-detection network were located in medial lobule-V bilaterally, in the vermis, and in posterior left Crus-I and right Crus-II. An additional fMRI study was performed to control for differences in motor output and response timing between the tasks. In this control study, the cerebellar activation sites of the rate-dependent and rate-independent color discrimination networks remained unaltered. The motor-and-detection network included cerebellar activations in posterior left Crus-I and right Crus-II, but none in lobule-V or the vermis. Thus, cerebellar activation sites of the motor-and-detection network could be subdivided into those related to a motor network and those belonging to a dimming detection network. We conclude that successive color discrimination activates multiple, functionally distinct cerebellar regions.

Sensory Responsiveness as a Predictor of Social Severity in Children with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Responsiveness to multisensory stimuli may be expected to have a close relationship with social severity because social interactions involve responses from multiple senses. The synchronization of brain areas is crucial for responsiveness to multisensory stimuli because multiple areas of the brain are involved once the sensory information reaches the cortices (Gomot et al 2002) and the subcortical regions and the cerebellum (Claeys et al 2003), so if any step of the processing of information from each sensory system is poorly synchronized, it will impact the multisensory responsiveness. The current findings are similar to the results from a previously published study in which the multisensory processing scores from the SP significantly predicted the degree of autistic pathology in the children (Gaines 2002).…”

Cognitive Impairment in Spinocerebellar Degeneration

“…The clinical observations in these patients are supported by functional neuroimaging studies demonstrating cerebellar activation in cognitive tasks. Cerebellar activation has been observed during tests of word generation [114], processing of words [115], working memory [116], verbal memory [117], motor sequence learning [118], cognitive processing [119], classical conditioning [120], attention [121], mental imagery [122], sensory discrimination [123], and visual discrimination [124]. Neuropathological changes in spinocerebellar degeneration are various and include those in the cerebrocerebellar circuitry, cortico-striatal-thalamocortical circuitry and the frontal lobe; however, patients with spinocerebellar degeneration all have involvement in cerebellum.…”

Cerebellum and auditory function: An ALE meta‐analysis of functional neuroimaging studies

“…Based largely on recent advancements in neuroimaging techniques, there are in particular a growing number of suggestions about cerebellar involvement in a wide variety of cognitive and perceptual activities, including temporal processing [Ivry and Keele, 1989;Jueptner et al, 1995;Nichelli et al, 1996;Pastor et al, 2004], language production and comprehension [Desmond et al, 1997;Justus, 2004;Petersen et al, 1989;Silveri et al, 1994;Xiang et al, 2003], spatial reasoning [Bracke-Tolmitt et al, 1989;Parsons et al, 1995], visual perception of motion, speed, and direction [Ivry and Diener, 1991;Thier et al, 1999], visual attention [Allen et al, 1997], color discrimination [Claeys et al, 2003], tactile and proprioceptive information processing [Blakemore et al, 1998;Jueptner et al, 1997;Seitz et al, 1991], olfaction [Ferdon and Murphy, 2003;Sobel et al, 1998], nociception [Helmchen et al, 2004;Willis, 2001, 2002], as well as sensory and cognitive states related to thirst [Parsons et al, 2000a], affect [Levisohn et al, 2000;Schmahmann and Schermann, 1998], and the perception of music [Parsons, 2001]. As a result, within the past 10 years, speculations regarding cerebellar function have arguably undergone the largest expansion seen for any brain structure in the last 100 years.…”