Key Points
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The cerebellum is traditionally regarded as a structure involved in motor control, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it also has an important role in processing higher level 'cognitive' information.
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This review first summarizes the anatomy of the cortico-cerebellar system, arguing that important clues about information processing can be derived from knowledge of its structural organization.
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The microstructure of the cerebellar cortex is uniform, suggesting that it processes its diverse inputs using a common set of computational principles.
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Control theory provides an excellent way to explain the involvement of the cerebellum in the control of movement.
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The anatomical organization of the cortico-cerebellar system suggests that these control theoretic accounts can be extended to explain how cerebellar circuits process information from the prefrontal cortex
Abstract
Evidence has been accumulating that the primate cerebellum contributes not only to motor control, but also to higher 'cognitive' function. However, there is no consensus about how the cerebellum processes such information. The answer to this puzzle can be found in the nature of cerebellar connections to areas of the cerebral cortex (particularly the prefrontal cortex) and in the uniformity of its intrinsic cellular organization, which implies uniformity in information processing regardless of the area of origin in the cerebral cortex. With this in mind, the relatively well-developed models of how the cerebellum processes information from the motor cortex might be extended to explain how it could also process information from the prefrontal cortex.
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I would like to thank R. C. Miall and P. L. Strick for helpful discussions.
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Glossary
- Climbing fibres
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Axons of inferior olive neurons that extend into the cerebellar cortex and exert a powerful influence on Purkinje cells. One of two main inputs into the cerebellum.
- Crus II
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This is the area of the macaque monkey cerebellar cortex that is most heavily interconnected with the area 46 of the prefrontal cortex.
- Cerebral peduncle
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All cortical projections that send fibres to the pontine nuclei converge into this white matter fibre bundle before synapsing with pontine neurons. This is a convenient location at which to study the organization of cortico-pontine projections using diffusion tensor imaging.
- Efference copy
-
Information processing might require that information exchanged between two systems is monitored by a third system (as in the case of systems that incorporate control theoretic internal models). Therefore, whenever such information is exchanged, an exact copy (an efference copy) is additionally transmitted to the monitor.
- Diaschesis
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A condition in which lesions not only impair information processing at the site of the lesion, but also adversely affect the information processing in connected downstream pathways. Therefore, the behavioural effects of lesions might at least in part be due to the impaired physiology of such areas rather than the direct effects of the lesion.
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Ramnani, N. The primate cortico-cerebellar system: anatomy and function. Nat Rev Neurosci 7, 511–522 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1953
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1953
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