Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Volume 2, Issue 9, 1 September 1998, Pages 331-337
Journal home page for Trends in Cognitive Sciences

What is the role of the cerebellum in motor learning and cognition?

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(98)01223-6Get rights and content

Abstract

The exact role of the cerebellum in motor learning and cognition is controversial. Nonetheless, recent ideas and facts have prompted an attempt at building and testing a more unified and coherent conceptualization. This article will suggest that the cerebellum might indeed participate in both motor control and cognition, and in motor adaptation, motor learning, and procedural learning. The proposed process would entail stimulus–response linkage through trial and error learning, and would consist of groupings of single-response elements—motor and cognitive—into large combinations. After practice, the occurrence of a sensory or experiential `context' would automatically trigger the combined response. The parallel fiber is the proposed agent of stimulus–response linkage and of combining the response elements. The attempt here is to focus on the role of the parallel fiber as a possible combiner of downstream motor and cognitive elements.

Section snippets

Cerebellar motor learning theories

Novel movements must be learned. In compound and sequential movements, one does not and cannot consciously plan all of the muscle actions. There are too many of them, their temporal relationships are too rapid and their magnitudes too precise. Movement is thus largely automatic—controlled by a background subconscious mental subroutine. As a foreground conscious mental routine, one might be aware of a few muscles and joints when learning new compound movements. Nonetheless, the unlearned novel

Experimental support

Studies show that the cerebellum can initiate movement: electrical stimulation of cerebellar nuclei causes movement13, 14, 15and discharge in motor cortex[16]; cerebellar nuclear discharge precedes voluntary movement and the discharge in motor cortex17, 18; inactivation of cerebellar nuclei delays movement onset17, 19and the discharge in motor cortex[20]. Purkinje-cell recording, cerebellar ablation, and conjoint electrical stimulation of climbing fibers and parallel fibers have provided

Where are the learned movements stored?

Whatever the role of the cerebellum in motor learning, the question remains of whether the information is stored at the granule-cell/parallel-fiber/Purkinje-cell synapse, as some theories propose4, 5, 8, or downstream from them in the cerebellar deep nuclei, or outside the cerebellum. In favor of a cerebellar storage site, it has been reported that classical eyeblink conditioning can (1) take place despite temporary blockade of the cerebellar output, (2) remain localized within the cerebellum,

Does the cerebellum control cognitive coordination and cognitive learning?

In humans, lesions of a large part of the cerebellum are clinically rather `silent'. That is, they might cause few or none of the motor deficits that traditionally characterize a cerebellar lesion. This applies to the lateral posterior inferior parts of the hemispheric cortex, which are supplied by the posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA). Occlusion of this artery is a common cause of cerebellar infarction. However, unless the branches to the brainstem are also involved, this stroke can

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