The cerebellar nuclei take center stage

Abstract

Classically, the cerebellum is viewed as a sensorimotor structure devolved essentially to the control and coordination of smooth movements. However, recent findings strongly suggest that the cerebellum may also make a substantial contribution to a variety of cognitive and affective functions, including reinforcement learning, social preference and attention. Concomitantly, rapid progress in technology has enabled the discovery of novel feedforward and feedback projections and a variety of electrophysiological mechanisms governing information transfer from the cerebellar cortex to the cerebellar nuclei, which serve as the primary output from the cerebellum. These discoveries are driving the current shift in cerebellar research from the cortex to the nuclei, and call for reevaluating the potential computational capacity of these nuclei.