Abstract
Recent design-based stereologic studies have shown that the early postnatal (<1 year of age) human cerebellum is characterized by very high plasticity and may thus be very sensitive to external and internal influences during the first year of life. A potential weakness of these studies is that they were not separately performed on functionally relevant subregions of the cerebellum, as was the case in a few design-based stereologic studies on the adult human cerebellum. The aim of the present study was to assess whether it is possible to identify unequivocally the primary, superior posterior, horizontal, ansoparamedian, and posterolateral fissures in the early postnatal human cerebellum, based on which functionally relevant subregions could be delineated. This was tested in 20 human post mortem cerebellar halves from subjects aged between 1 day and 11 months by means of a combined macroscopic and microscopic approach. We found that the superior posterior, horizontal, and posterolateral fissures can be reliably identified on all of the specimens. However, reliable and reproducible identification of the primary and ansoparamedian fissures was not possible. Accordingly, it appears feasible to perform subregion-specific investigations in the early postnatal human cerebellum when the identification of subregions is restricted to crus I (bordered by the superior posterior and horizontal fissures) and the flocculus (bordered by the posterolateral fissure). As such, it is recommended to define the entire cerebellar cortex as the region of interest in design-based stereologic studies on the early postnatal human cerebellum to guarantee reproducibility of results.
Highlights
The cerebellum is connected to the cerebrum, the brainstem, and the spinal cord by several fiber pathways (e.g., Paxinos, 1990; Roostaei et al, 2014; Witter and De Zeeuw, 2015)
It is critically involved in motor and sensory function as well as higher cognitive and emotional functions that can be assigned to different subregions of the cerebellum (e.g., Stoodley and Schmahmann, 2009; Buckner, 2013; Witter and De Zeeuw, 2015)
Its function can be studied in vivo using positron emission tomography (PET; e.g., Petacchi et al, 2010) and functional magnetic resonance imaging
Summary
The cerebellum is connected to the cerebrum, the brainstem, and the spinal cord by several fiber pathways (e.g., Paxinos, 1990; Roostaei et al, 2014; Witter and De Zeeuw, 2015). Subregions in the Early Postnatal Human Cerebellum approaches to understand its microscopic anatomy In this context, Stoodley and Schmahmann (2009) performed a metaanalysis of more than 50 functional neuroimaging studies of the human cerebellum and found the following: (i) sensorimotor tasks activate the anterior lobe (lobule V) and adjacent lobule VI, with additional foci in lobule VIII; (ii) motor activation is found in lobule VIIIA/B, while somatosensory activation is confined to lobule VIIIB; (iii) the posterior lobe is involved in higher-level tasks; (iv) lobule VI and Crus I are involved in language and verbal working memory, lobule VI in spatial tasks, lobules VI, Crus I and VIIB in executive functions, and lobules VI, Crus I and medial lobule VII in emotional processing; (v) language is heavily right-lateralized and spatial tasks leftlateralized, reflecting crossed cerebro-cerebellar projections; and (vi) emotional processing involves vermal lobule VII, implicated in cerebellar-limbic circuitry. Language and executive tasks activate regions of Crus I and lobule VII proposed to be involved in prefronto-cerebellar loops
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