The Cerebellum and Cognitive Function: Anatomical Evidence from a Transdiagnostic Sample

• Published in: Cerebellum (London, England) Vol. 23; no. 4; pp. 1399 - 1410
• Main Authors: Bègue, Indrit, Elandaloussi, Yannis, Delavari, Farnaz, Cao, Hengyi, Moussa-Tooks, Alexandra, Roser, Mathilde, Coupé, Pierrick, Leboyer, Marion, Kaiser, Stefan, Houenou, Josselin, Brady, Roscoe, Laidi, Charles
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2024; Springer Nature B.V; Springer
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain mapping; Cerebellum; Cerebellum - anatomy & histology; Cerebellum - diagnostic imaging; Cognition - physiology; Cognitive ability; Cognitive Sciences; Correlation analysis; Female; Functional anatomy; Gray Matter - diagnostic imaging; Humans; Information processing; Life Sciences; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Memory; Middle Aged; Neurobiology; Neuroimaging; Neurology; Neurons and Cognition; Neuropsychological Tests; Neurosciences; Psychopathology; Structure-function relationships; Substantia grisea; Young Adult; Cerebellum; Healthy Brain Network; Cognition; Cognitive flexibility; Structural neuroimaging; Cerebellum Cognition Cognitive flexibility Healthy Brain Network Structural neuroimaging
• ISSN: 1473-4230; 1473-4222; 1473-4230
• DOI: 10.1007/s12311-023-01645-y

Multiple lines of evidence across human functional, lesion, and animal data point to a cerebellar role, in particular of crus I, crus II, and lobule VIIB, in cognitive function. However, a mapping of distinct facets of cognitive function to cerebellar structure is missing. We analyzed structural neuroimaging data from the Healthy Brain Network (HBN). Cerebellar parcellation was performed with a validated automated segmentation pipeline (CERES) and stringent visual quality check ( n  = 662 subjects retained from initial n  = 1452). Canonical correlation analyses (CCA) examined regional gray matter volumetric (GMV) differences in association to cognitive function (quantified with NIH Toolbox Cognition domain, NIH-TB), accounting for psychopathology severity, age, sex, scan location, and intracranial volume. Multivariate CCA uncovered a significant correlation between two components entailing a latent cognitive canonical (NIH-TB subscales) and a brain canonical variate (cerebellar GMV and intracranial volume, ICV), surviving bootstrapping and permutation procedures. The components correspond to partly shared cerebellar-cognitive function relationship with a first map encompassing cognitive flexibility ( r  = 0.89), speed of processing ( r  = 0.65), and working memory ( r  = 0.52) associated with regional GMV in crus II ( r  = 0.57) and lobule X ( r  = 0.59) and a second map including the crus I ( r  = 0.49) and lobule VI ( r  = 0.49) associated with working memory ( r  = 0.51). We show evidence for a structural subspecialization of the cerebellum topography for cognitive function in a transdiagnostic sample.