Verbal Memory Impairments in Children after Cerebellar Tumor Resection

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate cerebellar lobular contributions to specific cognitive deficits observed after cerebellar tumor resection. Verbal working memory (VWM) tasks were administered to children following surgical resection of cerebellar pilocytic astrocytomas and age-matched controls. Anatomical MRI scans were used to quantify the extent of cerebellar lobular damage from each patient's resection. Patients exhibited significantly reduced digit span for auditory but not visual stimuli, relative to controls, and damage to left hemispheral lobule VIII was significantly correlated with this deficit. Patients also showed reduced effects of articulatory suppression and this was correlated with damage to the vermis and hemispheral lobule IV/V bilaterally. Phonological similarity and recency effects did not differ overall between patients and controls, but outlier patients with abnormal phonological similarity effects to either auditory or visual stimuli were found to have damage to hemispheral lobule VIII/VIIB on the left and right, respectively. We postulate that damage to left hemispheral lobule VIII may interfere with encoding of auditory stimuli into the phonological store. These data corroborate neuroimaging studies showing focal cerebellar activation during VWM paradigms, and thereby allow us to predict with greater accuracy which specific neurocognitive processes will be affected by a cerebellar tumor resection.

Psychosis in Spinocerebellar Ataxias: a Case Series and Study of Tyrosine Hydroxylase in Substantia Nigra

“…Additionally, connections between the cerebellum and brainstem have also been implicated in non-motor cerebellar functions. Lesion studies of patients with cerebellar damage have demonstrated similar findings to functional imaging studies in healthy adults and have found that the cerebellum likely modulates many cognitive processes including working [10, 11, 12], visuospatial [11, 13, 14], and episodic memory [11, 15]. …”

Resting-state functional connectivity of the vermal and hemispheric subregions of the cerebellum with both the cerebral cortical networks and subcortical structures

“…Traditionally, the cerebellum has been regarded as a part of the motor system, serving motor-related functions such as posture maintenance (Ouchi et al, 1999(Ouchi et al, , 2001 and motor control (Kasahara et al, 2010;Spencer et al, 2007). Recently, evidence from neuroimaging and clinical studies has supported the idea that the cerebellum is also involved in cognitive (Kirschen et al, 2008;Marien et al, 2001) and emotional functions (Gundel et al, 2003;Scheuerecker et al, 2007).…”

Time perception in children treated for a cerebellar medulloblastoma

“…The prefrontal cortex has been identified as the major cerebral structure regulating executive functions and information processing speed. However, a series of recent studies have pointed to the involvement of cerebellum in these high-level cognitive abilities, such as working memory or information processing speed (Chen & Desmond, 2005;Eckert, Keren, Roberts, Calhoun, & Harris, 2010;Kirschen et al, 2008). A disruption in the coordination between cerebellum and the frontal regions might thus be responsible for the disturbances in temporal reproductions.…”