The cerebellum has evolved to support basic sensory-motor functions. In the human brain, the cerebellar circuitry has dramatically expanded and contributes to virtually every cognitive function, including working memory, language, and social cognition. Given its uniform cytoarchitecture, it has long been hypothesized that the cerebellar circuit performs a common computation across all these functional domains. But what is this elusive transform? To ultimately answer this question we require a better understanding of the functional diversity of the cerebellum, it’s connectivity to the neocortex, and the relationship between cortical and cerebellar processes in each functional domain. I will present results from a number functional neuroimaging studies to characterize cerebellar function across cognitive domains to start to address these questions in a systematic fashion.
Organizer
Aleksandra Badura