Introducing the brain: human cerebellum different (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, March 13, 2020, 20:35 (1714 days ago) @ David Turell

More information:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661317300347?dgcid=raven_sd_...

"Multidisciplinary evidence indicates a role for the cerebellum in various aspects of cognition.

"Due to its uniform cytoarchitecture and extensive reciprocal connections with frontal, parietal, and temporal associative cortices, theorists have sought to identify cerebellar computations that are universal across sensorimotor and associative processes. Two key concepts are prediction and error-based learning.

"Recent work has revealed physiological diversity across structurally similar cerebellar modules. The computational constraints that arise from this diversity may be important for understanding cerebellar processing in different functional domains.
Knowledge has substantially evolved on cerebellar involvement in language and social cognition, providing representative domains to evaluate functional hypotheses of the ‘cognitive’ cerebellum and to consider how disturbances of cerebellar function may contribute to developmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.

"Over the past 30 years, cumulative evidence has indicated that cerebellar function extends beyond sensorimotor control. This view has emerged from studies of neuroanatomy, neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and brain stimulation, with the results implicating the cerebellum in domains as diverse as attention, language, executive function, and social cognition. Although the literature provides sophisticated models of how the cerebellum helps refine movements, it remains unclear how the core mechanisms of these models can be applied when considering a broader conceptualization of cerebellar function. In light of recent multidisciplinary findings, we examine how two key concepts that have been suggested as general computational principles of cerebellar function- prediction and error-based learning- might be relevant in the operation of cognitive cerebro-cerebellar loops.

Comment: Our cerebellum does not add to volume enlargement but is much more intimately related to our cortex than in apes. So it is not just a size difference but a design difference.