The cerebellum, containing more neurons than the rest of the brain combined, has traditionally been associated with motor coordination, balance, and timing. However, accumulating evidence from neuroimaging, lesion studies, and anatomical tracing has revealed extensive cerebellar connections with prefrontal, parietal, and temporal cortex, and cerebellar contributions to cognitive functions including language, working memory, attention, and emotional regulation.
Cognitive Functions
Patients with cerebellar damage show subtle cognitive deficits including impaired verbal fluency, working memory, spatial reasoning, and executive function — Schmahmann's "cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome." The cerebellum may contribute to cognition through its computational specialization in prediction, timing, and error-based learning — the same operations that optimize motor control may also optimize cognitive operations when applied to prefrontal-cerebellar circuits.
The cerebellum is thought to generate internal models — neural representations that predict the consequences of actions. In motor control, forward models predict the sensory consequences of motor commands, enabling rapid error correction. In cognition, analogous models may predict the consequences of cognitive operations, supporting fluent language production, efficient working memory updating, and accurate time estimation.