Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 80-82, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2019 Mar 8;89:1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2018.08.025. Epub 2018 Aug 25.
The cerebellum is a hindbrain structure which involvement in functions not related to motor control and planning is being increasingly recognized in the last decades. Studies on Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have reported cerebellar involvement on these conditions characterized by social deficits and repetitive motor behavior patterns. Although such an involvement hints at a possible cerebellar participation in the social domain, the fact that ASD patients present both social and motor deficits impedes drawing any firm conclusion regarding cerebellar involvement in pathological social behaviours, probably influenced by the classical view of the cerebellum as a purely "motor" brain structure. Here, we suggest the cerebellum can be a key node for the production and control of normal and particularly aberrant social behaviours, as indicated by its involvement in other neuropsychiatric disorders which main symptom is deregulated social behaviour. Therefore, in this work, we briefly review cerebellar involvement in social behavior in rodent models, followed by discussing the findings linking the cerebellum to those other psychiatric conditions characterized by defective social behaviours. Finally, possible commonalities between the studies and putative underlying impaired functions will be discussed and experimental approaches both in patients and experimental animals will also be proposed, aimed at stimulating research on the role of the cerebellum in social behaviours and disorders characterized by social impairments, which, if successful, will definitely help reinforcing the proposed cerebellar involvement in the social domain.
小脑是后脑结构，近年来越来越多的研究表明其参与了与运动控制和规划无关的功能。在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的研究中，报告了小脑在这些以社会缺陷和重复运动行为模式为特征的疾病中的参与。尽管这种参与暗示了小脑可能参与了社交领域，但 ASD 患者同时存在社交和运动缺陷，这使得难以就小脑在病理性社交行为中的参与得出任何明确的结论，这可能受到小脑作为纯粹“运动”脑结构的经典观点的影响。在这里，我们提出小脑可能是产生和控制正常和异常社交行为的关键节点，因为它参与了其他神经精神障碍的研究，这些障碍的主要症状是社交行为失调。因此，在这项工作中，我们简要回顾了啮齿动物模型中小脑在社交行为中的作用，随后讨论了将小脑与那些以社交行为缺陷为特征的其他精神疾病联系起来的研究结果。最后，将讨论研究之间的可能共性和潜在的功能障碍，并提出针对患者和实验动物的实验方法，旨在刺激对小脑在社交行为和以社交障碍为特征的障碍中的作用的研究，如果成功，这肯定有助于加强小脑在社交领域的参与。
