Multiple demand regions in cerebellum

Varol A. B., Duymuş H., Farooqui A.

9th International Symposium on Brain and Cognitive Science, İstanbul, Turkey, 07 May 2023, pp.22, (Summary Text)

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Summary Text
  • City: İstanbul
  • Country: Turkey
  • Page Numbers: pp.22
  • Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Cerebellum consists of 101 billion neurons, over 5 times more than the rest of the brain. Hence, suggested that the cerebellum may be involved in all matters of cognition in neuroimaging. The neuroimage activation of a common set of frontal and parietal regions in response to diverse control demands is well-known. These have been variously referred to as multiple demands, task-positive, cognitive-control, attentional network.

Cerebellum used to be thought of a motor-related region. Over the past two decades its role in other aspects of cognition has gradually been uncovered. Neuroimaging studies frequently find cerebellar activations during diverse cognitive tasks. However, functional distinctions within cerebellum remain unclear. It is commonly thought that the anterior lobe of cerebellum has motor related functions while the posterior lobe has cognitive functions. Specifically, lobules VI and VII (including crus 1 and 2) are believed to have cognitive functions while lobules I to V are considered to have motor-related functions.

We investigated which parts of cerebellum show increased activity across a diverse set of control demands and thus behave like multiple demand regions. Blind and sighted participants did four different tasks that involved working memory demands, tactile decisions, time-duration judgement and generating complex motor sequences.

Demands related motor-complexity showed increased activation in both anterior as well as posterior lobes. The three non-motor cognitive demands (working memory, tactile decision, and time-duration judgement) activated a region in lobule VI of posterior lobe that was also activated by motor-complexity. Crucially, these three non-motor cognitive demands also activated a locus in the vermis of anterior lobe that spanned lobules II-V.

We show that specific parts of cerebellum also activate in response to diverse set of control demands. These parts include what are accepted as cognitive parts (e.g., lobule VI), but crucially also include parts that are still thought of as purely motor (e.g., vermis of lobules II – V).