Abstract
The idea that cerebellar processing is required in a variety of cognitive functions is well accepted in the neuroscience community. Nevertheless, the definition of the cerebellar role in the different cognitive domains remains obscure. Current data on perceptual and cognitive processing from lesion studies in humans and from experimental lesion studies in rats are reviewed with special emphasis on cerebellar sequencing properties. Evidence converges in highlighting sequence detection as the keystone of cerebellar functioning across modalities. The hypothesis that sequence detection might represent the main contribution of cerebellar physiology to brain functioning is presented and discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akatsuka K, Wasaka T, Nakata H et al (2005) Mismatch responses related to temporal discrimination of somatosensory stimulation. Clin Neurophysiol 116:1930–1937
Alain C, Woods DL, Knight RT (1998) A distributed cortical network for auditory sensory memory in humans. Brain Res 812:23–37
Ardila A, Rosselli M (1993) Spatial agraphia. Brain Cogn 22:137–147
Bastian AJ (2006) Learning to predict the future: the cerebellum adapts feedforward movement control. Curr Opin Neurobiol 16:645–649
Baumann O, Borra RJ, Bower JM et al (2015) Consensus paper: the role of the cerebellum in perceptual processes. Cerebellum 14:197–220
Bo J, Block HJ, Clark JE, Bastian AJ (2008) A cerebellar deficit in sensorimotor prediction explains movement timing variability. J Neurophysiol 100:2825–2832
Bower JM (1997) Control of sensory data acquisition. Int Rev Neurobiol 41:489–513
Bower JM, Parsons LM (2003) Rethinking the “lesser brain”. Sci Am 289:50–57
Braitenberg V, Heck D, Sultan F (1997) The detection and generation of sequences as a key to cerebellar function: experiments and theory. Behav Brain Sci 20:229–277
Chiricozzi FR, Clausi S, Molinari M, Leggio MG (2008) Phonological short-term store impairment after cerebellar lesion: a single case study. Neuropsychologia 46:1940–1953
Crozier S, Sirigu A, Lehericy S et al (1999) Distinct prefrontal activations in processing sequence at the sentence and script level: an fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 37:1469–1476
Cubelli R, Guiducci A, Consolmagno P (2000) Afferent dysgraphia after right cerebral stroke: an autonomous syndrome? Brain Cogn 44:629–644
Dirnberger G, Novak J, Nasel C, Zehnter M (2010) Separating coordinative and executive dysfunction in cerebellar patients during motor skill acquisition. Neuropsychologia 48:1200–1208
Ellis AW (1988) Normal writing processes and peripheral acquired dysgraphias. Lang Cognit Process 3:99–127
Fabbro F, Moretti R, Bava A (2000) Language impairments in patients with cerebellar lesions. J Neurolinguistics 13:173–188
Fiez JA, Petersen SE, Cheney MK, Raichle ME (1992) Impaired non-motor learning and error detection associated with cerebellar damage. A single case study. Brain 115(1):155–178
Frings M, Boenisch R, Gerwig M et al (2004) Learning of sensory sequences in cerebellar patients. Learn Mem 11:347–355
Frings M, Maschke M, Gerwig M et al (2006) Acquisition of simple auditory and visual sequences in cerebellar patients. Cerebellum 5:206–211
Gao JH, Parsons LM, Bower JM et al (1996) Cerebellum implicated in sensory acquisition and discrimination rather than motor control. Science 272:482–483
Gebhart AL, Petersen SE, Thach WT (2002) Role of the posterolateral cerebellum in language. Ann N Y Acad Sci 978:318–333
Gomez-Beldarrain M, Garcia-Monco JC, Rubio B, Pascual-Leone A (1998) Effect of focal cerebellar lesions on procedural learning in the serial reaction time task. Exp Brain Res 120:25–30
Graziano A, Leggio MG, Mandolesi L et al (2002) Learning power of single behavioral units in acquisition of a complex spatial behavior: an observational learning study in cerebellar-lesioned rats. Behav Neurosci 116:116–125
Ito M (2006) Cerebellar circuitry as a neuronal machine. Prog Neurobiol 78:272–303
Ito M (2008) Control of mental activities by internal models in the cerebellum. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:304–313
Ivry R (2000) Exploring the role of the cerebellum in sensory anticipation and timing: commentary on Tesche and Karhu (comment). Hum Brain Mapp 9:115–118
Ivry RB, Spencer RM, Zelaznik HN, Diedrichsen J (2002) The cerebellum and event timing. Ann N Y Acad Sci 978:302–317
Leggio M, Molinari M (2015) Cerebellar sequencing: a trick for predicting the future. Cerebellum 14:35–38
Leggio MG, Neri P, Graziano A et al (1999) Cerebellar contribution to spatial event processing: characterization of procedural learning. Exp Brain Res 127:1–11
Leggio MG, Molinari M, Neri P et al (2000a) Representation of actions in rats: the role of cerebellum in learning spatial performances by observation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97: 2320–2325
Leggio MG, Silveri MC, Petrosini L, Molinari M (2000b) Phonological grouping is specifically affected in cerebellar patients: a verbal fluency study. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 69: 102–106
Leggio MG, Tedesco AM, Chiricozzi FR et al (2008) Cognitive sequencing impairment in patients with focal or atrophic cerebellar damage. Brain 131:1332–1343
Leggio MG, Chiricozzi FR, Clausi S et al (2011) The neuropsychological profile of cerebellar damage: the sequencing hypothesis. Cortex 47:137–144
Mariën P, Engelborghs S, Pickut BA, De Deyn PP (2000) Aphasia following cerebellar damage: fact or fallacy? J Neurolinguistics 13:145–171
Mariën P, Verhoeven J, Brouns R et al (2007) Apraxic agraphia following a right cerebellar hemorrhage. Neurology 69:926–929
Mariën P, Ackermann H, Adamaszek M et al (2014) Consensus paper: language and the cerebellum: an ongoing enigma. Cerebellum 13:386–410
Martin A, Wiggs CL, Lalonde F, Mack C (1994) Word retrieval to letter and semantic cues: a double dissociation in normal subjects using interference tasks. Neuropsychologia 32:1487–1494
Marvel C, Desmond J (2010) Functional topography of the cerebellum in verbal working memory. Neuropsychol Rev 20:271
Maschke M, Drepper J, Burgerhoff K et al (2002) Differences in trace and delay visuomotor associative learning in cerebellar patients. Exp Brain Res 147:538–548
Moberget T, Karns CM, Deouell LY et al (2008) Detecting violations of sensory expectancies following cerebellar degeneration: a mismatch negativity study. Neuropsychologia 46: 2569–2579
Molinari M, Petrosini L (1997) Is sequence in/sequence out a cerebellar mode of operation in cognition too? Behav Brain Sci 20:259–260
Molinari M, Leggio MG, Solida A et al (1997) Cerebellum and procedural learning: evidence from focal cerebellar lesions. Brain 120:1753–1762
Molinari M, Filippini V, Leggio MG (2002) Neuronal plasticity of interrelated cerebellar and cortical networks. Neuroscience 111:863–870
Molinari M, Chiricozzi F, Clausi S et al (2008) Cerebellum and detection of sequences, from perception to cognition. Cerebellum 7:611–615
Morris R (1984) Developments of a water-maze procedure for studying spatial learning in the rat. J Neurosci Methods 11:47–60
Naatanen R, Michie PT (1979) Early selective-attention effects on the evoked potential: a critical review and reinterpretation. Biol Psychol 8:81–136
Nissen MJ, Bullemer P (1987) Attentional requirements of learning: evidence from performance measures. Cogn Psychol 19:1–32
Nixon PD (2003) The role of the cerebellum in preparing responses to predictable sensory events. Cerebellum 2:114–122
Orsini A, Laicardi C (2000) Factor structure of the Italian version of the WAIS-R compared with the American standardization. Percept Mot Skills 90:1091–1100
Pascual-Leone A, Grafman J, Clark K et al (1993) Procedural learning in Parkinson’s disease and cerebellar degeneration. Ann Neurol 34:594–602
Petersen SE, Fox PT, Posner MI et al (1988) Positron emission tomographic studies of the cortical anatomy of single-word processing. Nature 331:585–589
Petrosini L, Leggio MG, Molinari M (1998) The cerebellum in the spatial problem solving: a co-star or a guest star? Prog Neurobiol 56:191–210
Petrosini L, Graziano A, Mandolesi L, Neri P, Molinari M, Leggio MG (2003) Watch how to do it! New advances in learning by observation. Brain Res Brain Res Rev 42(3):252–264
Raichle ME, Fiez JA, Videen TO et al (1994) Practice-related changes in human brain functional anatomy during nonmotor learning. Cereb Cortex 4:8–26
Restuccia D, Della Marca G, Valeriani M et al (2007) Cerebellar damage impairs detection of somatosensory input changes. A somatosensory mismatch-negativity study. Brain 130:276–287
Richter S, Matthies K, Ohde T et al (2004) Stimulus-response versus stimulus-stimulus-response learning in cerebellar patients. Exp Brain Res 158:438–449
Rosser A, Hodges JR (1994) Initial letter and semantic category fluency in Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and progressive supranuclear palsy. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 57:1389–1394
Schmahmann JD (1997) Rediscovery of an early concept. Int Rev Neurobiol 41:3–27
Schmahmann J (2010) The role of the cerebellum in cognition and emotion: personal reflections since 1982 on the dysmetria of thought hypothesis, and its historical evolution from theory to therapy. Neuropsychol Rev 20:236
Schmahmann JD, Sherman JC (1998) The cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (see comments). Brain 121(Pt 4):561–579
Shin JC, Ivry RB (2003) Spatial and temporal sequence learning in patients with Parkinson’s disease or cerebellar lesions. J Cogn Neurosci 15:1232–1243
Silveri MC, Leggio MG, Molinari M (1994) The cerebellum contributes to linguistic production: a case of agrammatic speech following a right cerebellar lesion (see comments). Neurology 44:2047–2050
Silveri MC, Misciagna S, Leggio MG, Molinari M (1997) Spatial dysgraphia and cerebellar lesion: a case report. Neurology 48:1529–1532
Silveri MC, Misciagna S, Leggio MG, Molinari M (1999) Cerebellar spatial dysgraphia: further evidence (letter). J Neurol 246:312–313
Stoodley CJ, Schmahmann JD (2009) Functional topography in the human cerebellum: a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Neuroimage 44:489–501
Takegata R, Paavilainen P, Naatanen R, Winkler I (2001) Preattentive processing of spectral, temporal, and structural characteristics of acoustic regularities: a mismatch negativity study. Psychophysiology 38:92–98
Tedesco AM, Chiricozzi FR, Clausi S et al (2011) The cerebellar cognitive profile. Brain. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awr266.2011
Tedesco AM, Bianchini F, Piccardi L et al (2017) Does the cerebellum contribute to human navigation by processing sequential information? Neuropsychology 31:564–574
Tesche CD, Karhu JJ (2000) Anticipatory cerebellar responses during somatosensory omission in man (see comments). Hum Brain Mapp 9:119–142
Thach WT, Goodkin HP, Keating JG (1992) The cerebellum and the adaptive coordination of movement. Annu Rev Neurosci 15:403–442
Timmann D, Daum I (2007) Cerebellar contributions to cognitive functions: a progress report after two decades of research. Cerebellum 6:159–162
Timmann D, Drepper J, Calabrese S et al (2004) Use of sequence information in associative learning in control subjects and cerebellar patients. Cerebellum 3:75–82
Tinaz S, Schendan HE, Schon K, Stern CE (2006) Evidence for the importance of basal ganglia output nuclei in semantic event sequencing: an fMRI study. Brain Res 1067:239–249
Ullman MT (2004) Contributions of memory circuits to language: the declarative/procedural model. Cognition 92:231–270
White M, Lalonde R, Botez M (2000) Neuropsychologic and neuropsychiatric characteristics of patients with Friedreich’s ataxia. Acta Neurol Scand 102:222–226
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Molinari, M., Leggio, M. (2020). Cerebellar Sequencing for Cognitive Processing. In: Manto, M., Gruol, D., Schmahmann, J., Koibuchi, N., Sillitoe, R. (eds) Handbook of the Cerebellum and Cerebellar Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97911-3_76-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97911-3_76-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97911-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97911-3
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences