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Cerebellum found to be important in cognition and behavior
October 3, 2005
Children's Hospital Boston
Premature babies with cerebellar damage have wide-ranging developmental
delays
Higher cognitive functions, like language and visual processing, have long been
thought to reside primarily in the brain's cerebrum. But a body of research in
premature infants at Children's Hospital Boston is documenting an important role
for the cerebellum – previously thought to be principally involved in motor
coordination – and shows that cerebellar injury can have far-reaching
developmental consequences.
The latest study, in the October issue of Pediatrics, also demonstrates that the
cerebrum and cerebellum are tightly interconnected. Sophisticated MRI imaging of
74 preterm infants' brains revealed that when there was injury to the cerebrum,
the cerebellum failed to grow to a normal size. When the cerebral injury was
confined to one side, it was the opposite cerebellar hemisphere that failed to
grow normally. The reverse was also true: when injury occurred in one cerebellar
hemisphere, the opposite cerebral hemisphere was smaller than normal.
"There seems to be an important developmental link between the cerebrum and the
cerebellum," says Catherine Limperopoulos, PhD, in Children's Department of
Neurology, the study's lead author. "We're finding that the two structures
modulate each other's growth and development. The way the brain forms
connections between structures may be as important as the injury itself."
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