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. 2007 Mar 25;45(6):1331-41.
doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.09.023. Epub 2006 Nov 22.

The cerebellum and emotional experience

Beth M Turner  1 , Sergio Paradiso, Cherie L Marvel, Ronald Pierson, Laura L Boles Ponto, Richard D Hichwa, Robert G Robinson
Affiliations

The cerebellum and emotional experience

Beth M Turner et al. Neuropsychologia. .

Abstract

While the role of the cerebellum in motor coordination is widely accepted, the notion that it is involved in emotion has only recently gained popularity. To date, functional neuroimaging has not been used in combination with lesion studies to elucidate the role of the cerebellum in the processing of emotional material. We examined six participants with cerebellar stroke and nine age and education matched healthy volunteers. In addition to a complete neuropsychological, neurologic, and psychiatric examination, participants underwent [15O]water positron emission tomography (PET) while responding to emotion-evoking visual stimuli. Cerebellar lesions were associated with reduced pleasant experience in response to happiness-evoking stimuli. Stroke patients reported an unpleasant experience to frightening stimuli similar to healthy controls, yet showed significantly lower activity in the right ventral lateral and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, amygdala, thalamus, and retrosplenial cingulate gyrus. Frightening stimuli led to increased activity in the ventral medial prefrontal, anterior cingulate, pulvinar, and insular cortex. This suggests that alternate neural circuitry became responsible for maintaining the evolutionarily critical fear response after cerebellar damage.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. MRI slices showing location of the lesions in each of the six study participants
All stroke victims had lesions, identified in the figure with an arrow, affecting the cerebellum. The numbering for the MRI images corresponds with the stroke patient numbering in Tables 2 and 3. MRI scans showed Subject 1 had left sided damage to the lateral anterior lobe. The lesion extended deep into the corpus, just posterior and lateral to the dentate and may have impacted the dentate. A small lesion was also seen on the right side of Crus II within the intermediate region. A small portion of the right vermis was also affected, impacting lobules VIII and IX as well as the tonsil. Subject 2 had bilateral lesions in the medial and intermediate regions of Crus II of VIIa, VIIb, and VIII. General atrophy was visible throughout the cerebellum and cerebrum. Subject 3 showed damage to lobe VIII and Crus II of VIIb. Subject 4 showed damage to Crus I and lobe VIII. Subject 5 showed damage to the right cerebellum in area Crus II. Subject 6 showed damage to the right half of the inferior vermis as well as a very small part of Crus I.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Statistical maps of brain regions showing differences in functional activity based on between-group comparisons of frightening versus happiness-evoking stimuli in cerebellar stroke victims and healthy volunteers
T-maps for the subtraction of PET count activity while viewing the frightening minus happiness-evoking stimuli are presented (A = cerebellar stroke patients, B = healthy volunteers, and C = the double subtraction of stroke patients minus healthy volunteers). The t-map shows the t-value for all voxels in the image and provides a general overview of the landscape of differences in functional activity between the two conditions. T-values are superimposed on a composite magnetic resonance image scan derived by averaging the MRI scans from the participants. Green crosshairs are used to show the location of a slice over the amygdala for each group. Images are presented in radiological convention.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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