Inability to Process Negative Emotions in Cerebellar Damage: a Functional Transcranial Doppler Sonographic Study

Abstract

Recent studies have implicated the cerebellum as part of a circuitry that is necessary to modulate higher order and behaviorally relevant information in emotional domains. However, little is known about the relationship between the cerebellum and emotional processing. This study examined cerebellar function specifically in the processing of negative emotions. Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography was performed to detect selective changes in middle cerebral artery flow velocity during emotional stimulation in patients affected by focal or degenerative cerebellar lesions and in matched healthy subjects. Changes in flow velocity during non-emotional (motor and cognitive tasks) and emotional (relaxing and negative stimuli) conditions were recorded. In the present study, we found that during negative emotional task, the hemodynamic pattern of the cerebellar patients was significantly different to that of controls. Indeed, whereas relaxing stimuli did not elicit an increase in mean flow velocity in any group, negative stimuli increased the mean flow velocity in the right compared with left middle cerebral artery only in the control group. The patterns by which mean flow velocity increased during the motor and cognitive tasks were similar within patients and controls. These findings support that the cerebellum is part of a network that gives meaning to external stimuli, and this particular involvement in processing negative emotional stimuli corroborates earlier phylogenetic hypotheses, for which the cerebellum is part of an older circuit in which negative emotions are crucial for survival and prepare the organism for rapid defense.

The Cerebellar Cognitive Affective/Schmahmann Syndrome: a Task Force Paper

“…This topic has remained controversial [221]. In a study of SCA2 patients [222], Go/NoGo and divided and sustained attention were impaired. These tasks depend on multisensory integration, sequencing, prediction of events, and inhibition of inappropriate responses, all of which are affected by CB damage.…”

“…Patients with midline lesions demonstrate socialemotional aberrant behaviors [3,12,58,60,263], and social cognition is impaired in CB patients assessed using the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test [109]. CB lesions also affect encoding and processing of external negative stimuli [222] and conscious self-monitoring of negative emotion [264].…”

Romantic jealousy is positively associated with fronto-striatal, insula and limbic responses to angry faces

“…The association observed between cerebellar activation in response to angry faces and trait jealousy may also reflect this region’s increasingly recognized role in processing affective stimuli, particularly negative valence ones (Strata, 2015). Indeed, damage to the cerebellum is associated with inability to process negative emotions (Lupo et al, 2015). A case study has also reported delusional behavior in a patient with cerebellar damage (Mitsuhata and Tsukagoshi, 1992).…”

Implicit vs. Explicit Emotion Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Opinion on the Role of the Cerebellum

“…Over the years, many scientific studies have recognized the cerebellum as being part of these brain networks (Stoodley and Schmahmann, 2010;Baumann and Mattingley, 2012;Leggio and Olivito, 2018;Clausi et al, 2019a;Van Overwalle et al, 2019a) and have evidenced its role in affective and emotional functioning (Adamaszek et al, 2015;Clausi et al, 2015Clausi et al, , 2019bLupo et al, 2015Lupo et al, , 2018. Accordingly, functional and anatomical connections have been found between the cerebellum and the cortical and subcortical structures involved in both implicit and explicit emotional processing (Critchley et al, 2000;Singer et al, 2004;Schutter et al, 2009;Stoodley and Schmahmann, 2010;Schraa-Tam et al, 2012).…”