Heck Detlef H, Fox Mia B, Correia Chapman Brittany, McAfee Samuel S, Liu Yu
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth, MN, United States.
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, College of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, United States.
Front Syst Neurosci. 2023 Mar 30;17:1126508. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2023.1126508. eCollection 2023.
There is general agreement that cerebrocerebellar interactions cerebellothalamocortical pathways are essential for a cerebellar cognitive and motor functions. Cerebellothalamic projections were long believed target mainly the ventral lateral (VL) and part of the ventral anterior (VA) nuclei, which project to cortical motor and premotor areas. Here we review new insights from detailed tracing studies, which show that projections from the cerebellum to the thalamus are widespread and reach almost every thalamic subnucleus, including nuclei involved in cognitive functions. These new insights into cerebellothalamic pathways beyond the motor thalamus are consistent with the increasing evidence of cerebellar cognitive function. However, the function of cerebellothalamic pathways and how they are involved in the various motor and cognitive functions of the cerebellum is still unknown. We briefly review literature on the role of the thalamus in coordinating the coherence of neuronal oscillations in the neocortex. The coherence of oscillations, which measures the stability of the phase relationship between two oscillations of the same frequency, is considered an indicator of increased functional connectivity between two structures showing coherent oscillations. Through thalamocortical interactions coherence patterns dynamically create and dissolve functional cerebral cortical networks in a task dependent manner. Finally, we review evidence for an involvement of the cerebellum in coordinating coherence of oscillations between cerebral cortical structures. We conclude that cerebellothalamic pathways provide the necessary anatomical substrate for a proposed role of the cerebellum in coordinating neuronal communication between cerebral cortical areas by coordinating the coherence of oscillations.
人们普遍认为，大脑与小脑的相互作用以及小脑 - 丘脑 - 皮质通路对于小脑的认知和运动功能至关重要。长期以来，人们认为小脑丘脑投射主要靶向腹外侧（VL）核和部分腹前（VA）核，这些核投射到皮质运动和运动前区。在此，我们回顾详细追踪研究的新见解，这些研究表明从小脑到丘脑的投射广泛，几乎到达丘脑的每个亚核，包括参与认知功能的核。这些关于运动丘脑之外的小脑丘脑通路的新见解与小脑认知功能的证据不断增加相一致。然而，小脑丘脑通路的功能以及它们如何参与小脑的各种运动和认知功能仍然未知。我们简要回顾关于丘脑在协调新皮质神经元振荡连贯性中作用的文献。振荡的连贯性衡量同一频率的两个振荡之间相位关系的稳定性，被认为是显示相干振荡的两个结构之间功能连接增加的指标。通过丘脑 - 皮质相互作用，连贯性模式以任务依赖的方式动态创建和溶解功能性大脑皮质网络。最后，我们回顾小脑参与协调大脑皮质结构之间振荡连贯性的证据。我们得出结论，小脑丘脑通路为小脑通过协调振荡连贯性在协调大脑皮质区域之间神经元通信中所提出的作用提供了必要的解剖学基础。
