Demonstrating that the functional coupling depends on intact anat

Demonstrating that the functional coupling depends on intact anatomical connectivity, patients with focal infarcts to the hemipons, which disconnect the cerebrum from the contralateral cerebellum, display selectively disrupted functional coupling between the cerebrum and contralateral cerebellum (Lu et al., 2011). These results suggest that measures of intrinsic functional

coupling reveal details of cerebellar organization with a high degree of precision. What maps to the extensive zones between the cerebral motor representations in the human? Three independent studies examining coupling with cerebral association cortex, including prefrontal regions, all demonstrated that extensive portions of the cerebellum map to association cortex (Habas et al., 2009, Krienen and Buckner, 2009 and O’Reilly et al., 2010). For example, Habas et al. (2009) showed Alpelisib purchase that major portions of Crus I/II are linked to association networks involved with executive control. Selleckchem I-BET151 Given that association cortex is disproportionately expanded in humans relative to monkeys and apes (Preuss, 2004,

Van Essen and Dierker, 2007, Hill et al., 2010 and Sherwood et al., 2012), it is possible that a majority of the human cerebellum is connected to association cortex. To explore this possibility in greater detail, Buckner et al. (2011) used an approach to comprehensively map the cerebellum. In a group of 1,000 individuals, each voxel within

the cerebellum, which represents 2 blurred cubic mm of tissue volume, was mapped to its most strongly associated cortical network. Three findings resulted from this winner-take-all approach. First, the majority of the human cerebellum falling between the Thalidomide anterior and posterior motor representations maps to cerebral association networks (Figure 5). Second, with a few notable exceptions, the proportion of the cerebellum dedicated to a cerebral network was about as large as the extent of that network in the cerebrum. That is, cerebral networks that are large display coupling to correspondingly large cerebellar territories. Thus, the cerebellum, at least insofar as representation of the cerebrum is concerned, displays a roughly homotopic representation of the full cerebral mantle. The few notable exceptions include the primary visual and auditory cortex, which are not represented within the cerebellum of the human. Finally, cerebral association networks displayed multiple anterior and posterior representations in the cerebellum paralleling the long-established double representation of the body motor map. This last finding is particularly revealing as it suggests that there may be parsimony to the overall organization of the cerebellum.

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