The Contribution of Brainstem and Cerebellar Pathways to Auditory Recognition

Abstract

The cerebellum has been known to play an important role in motor functions for many years. More recently its role has been expanded to include a range of cognitive and sensory-motor processes, and substantial neuroimaging and clinical evidence now points to cerebellar involvement in most auditory processing tasks. In particular, an increase in the size of the cerebellum over recent human evolution has been attributed in part to the development of speech. Despite this, the auditory cognition literature has largely overlooked afferent auditory connections to the cerebellum that have been implicated in acoustically conditioned reflexes in animals, and could subserve speech and other auditory processing in humans. This review expands our understanding of auditory processing by incorporating cerebellar pathways into the anatomy and functions of the human auditory system. We reason that plasticity in the cerebellar pathways underpins implicit learning of spectrotemporal information necessary for sound and speech recognition. Once learnt, this information automatically recognizes incoming auditory signals and predicts likely subsequent information based on previous experience. Since sound recognition processes involving the brainstem and cerebellum initiate early in auditory processing, learnt information stored in cerebellar memory templates could then support a range of auditory processing functions such as streaming, habituation, the integration of auditory feature information such as pitch, and the recognition of vocal communications.

Functional MRI activation patterns of cerebellum in patients with epilepsy and brain tumors

“…With human evolution cerebellum has increased in size and this has been attributed to development of speech and auditory pathways connected to cerebellum (McLachlan and Wilson ). Neurocognitive model integrating cortico‐ponto‐cerebellar pathways into cerebellar anatomy and function has been recently described (McLachlan and Wilson ). Cerebellar memory templates support a range of memory processing functions such as habituation and integration of auditory feature like pitch and recognition of vocal communications.…”

Maturation of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cerebellar Neurons in the Absence of Co-culture

“…The cerebellum plays a critical role in maintaining balance and posture, coordination of voluntary movements, and motor learning in all vertebrates (for a recent review see McLachlan and Wilson, 2017). Recent evidence has indicated that this brain structure also plays a role in auditory processing tasks, reward expectation (Wagner et al, 2017), and other forms of emotional processing (Adamaszek et al, 2017).…”

A Case Report of Perceptual Disturbances with Incidental Calcifications in the Cerebellum

“…Multiple studies have been done, highlighting this contribution within the auditory circuit, specifically within the cortico-ponto-cerebellar pathway [ 4 ]. A meta-analysis performed by Petacchi et al showed that in response to auditory stimuli, the temporal auditory areas of the cerebral cortex displayed the most activation [ 5 ].…”

“…In addition, several studies have demonstrated that the cerebellum plays a role in the sensory processing of stimuli, specifically in regulating the input and evaluation of various sensory data [ 1 ]. The medial geniculate body of the thalamus relays information from the deep nuclei of the cerebellum to the secondary auditory cortex for sound identification [ 4 ]. This displays cerebellum's role in higher cortical function and supports that any disruption of auditory processing, including calcifications, has the potential to alter incoming sensory information.…”