Nonmotor functions of the cerebellum.

Abstract

Reviews the literature to determine the involvement of the cerebellum in psychological processes. Traditional concepts of cerebellar physiology have emphasized motor control functions. It is suggested that this brain structure may participate in sensory integration activities, motor skills learning, visual and auditory discrimination performance, emotion and motivation control, and reinforcement processes. (6 p ref)

Role of an enriched environment on the restoration of behavioral deficits in Lurcher mutant mice

“…In the present study, mice of both groups had many more open arm entries than in the previous one, probably caused by differences in environmental conditions such as the intensity of room illumination, maze positioning, and maze dimensions. The increased entries and duration of open arm visits by Lurchers may be ascribed to a decrease in behavioral inhibition, as has been found with cerebellar-damaged animals on other tasks, such as spontaneous alternation (Lalonde et al, 1986), differential reinforcement of low rate (Kirk, 1985), and successive discrimination learning (see Watson, 1978).…”

Association between Essential Tremor and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases: What Is the Epidemiological Evidence

“…More recently, postmortem studies in ET have indicated the presence of a variety of structural and degenerative changes in the cerebellum, including increased number of Purkinje cell axonal swellings ('torpedoes'), increased number of displaced or heterotopic Purkinje cells, reduction in number of Purkinje cells, and hypertrophy of basket cell processes ('hairy baskets') [16,86,87] . Although the cerebellum was originally thought to be purely a mediator of motor function and coordination, some have suggested that the cerebellum participates in facilitating psychological and learning activities [55,[88][89][90][91][92] . These findings have given rise to the theory of an abnormality in a cerebellothalamocortical or cerebellothalamofrontal network in ET patients with cognitive deficits [53,59,93] .…”

Prediction and preparation, fundamental functions of the cerebellum.

“…This tremendous number of neurons, coupled with the high input-to-output axon ratio (cerebellar afferents to efferents are 40:1; Carpenter 1991) suggests that its function must be massively integrative. It is also one of the most widely connected structures, having physiological connections with all major divisions of the CNS (Moruzzi and Magoun 1949;Snider 1950Snider , 1967Bava et al 1966;Sasaki et al 1972Sasaki et al , 1979Kitano et al 1976;Watson 1978;Itoh and Mizuno 1979;Newman and Reza 1979;Saint-Cyr and Woodward 1980a,b;Vilensky and Van Hoesen 1981;Crispino and Bullock 1984;Ito 1984;Haines and Dietrichs 1987;King 1987;Nieuwenhuys et al 1988;Schmahmann and Pandya 1989;Ghez 1991;Ikai et al 1992;Llimis and Sotelo 1992;Thielert and Thier 1993;Glickstein et al 1994;Lynch et al 1994;Middleton andStrick 1994, Schmahmann 1996). Moreover, experimental data and, in particular, the results of recent fMR imaging and PET studies, indicate that the cerebellum might be involved in a wide range of functions, including attention, associative learning, practice-related learning, procedural learning, declarative memory, working memory, semantic association, conditioned anxiety, mental exploration, and complex reasoning and problem solving as well as sensory, motor and motor skill acquisition (see Table 1).…”