The Cerebellum, Sensitive Periods, and Autism

By S. Wang, A. Kloth, Aleksandra Badura. Neuron, 2014

758 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Cerebellar research has focused principally on adult motor function. However, the cerebellum also maintains abundant connections with nonmotor brain regions throughout postnatal life. Here we review evidence that the cerebellum may guide the maturation of remote nonmotor neural circuitry and influence cognitive development, with a focus on its relationship with autism. Specific cerebellar zones influence neocortical substrates for social interaction, and we propose that sensitive-period disruption of such internal brain communication can account for autism's key features.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Genetics, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0dc08ceff7472e6b23a6074430f0dcbd6cad1025

Citations in the corpus

• Purkinje cells directly inhibit granule cells in specialized regions of the cerebellar cortex (2016, neutral): “Cerebellar dysfunction results in ataxia and dystonia, and more recently has been implicated in autism spectrum disorder (Fatemi et al., 2012; Tsai et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2014).”
• Advancing the understanding of autism disease mechanisms through genetics (2016, neutral): “In fact, developmental injury in cerebellar circuitry may increase ASD risk 36-fold, whereas adult injury does not lead to social dysfunction 206 , suggesting that the cerebellum may not be the direct neural correlate of social behavior, but that instead cerebellar injury during early development…”
• Population-scale organization of cerebellar granule neuron signaling during a visuomotor behavior (2017, neutral): “∫ τ = ′ ′ τ − − ′ F t dt r t e ( ) 1 ( ) (8) i”