Artifacts or not? Today’s thread will be talking about some of the unexpected findings in patients with neurological disorders, in which the #cerebellum was believed to be unaffected until recently. 1/7

Researchers long believed the #cerebellem was simply to coordinate movements. As such, the relations between cerebellar changes and clinical features in neurological disorders received little attention or were thought to be artifacts despite being present in many studies. 2/7

Recent studies have demonstrated structural and functional abnormalities in the #cerebellum and correlated these changes with cognitive dysfunctions in numerous acquired neurological conditions, such as dementia, alcohol-related brain damage, psychiatric disorders, etc. 3/7

Cerebellar malformations and functional abnormality have been reported in neurodevelopmental disorders and ~200 neurogenetic syndromes. The cerebellum develops over a relatively long time window, which makes it vulnerable to developmental insults, such as genetic mutations. 4/7

In addition to motor dysfunction, many patients with congenital or precocious cerebellar malformations also present with neuropsychological deficits, intellectual disabilities, severe language disorders and behavioural changes. 5/7

Interestingly, patterns of cerebellar changes are distinct across these diseases, providing support for a functional specialization of the #cerebellum. 6/7 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28501823/ 

For the final day of #AS4SANtakeover week, I will be talking about one of the topics of my research interests in cerebellar contributions to frontotemporal dementia #FTD 7/7