Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, in an average week, how
Speaker 1: many times would you say you walk across the room,
Speaker 1: drive your car, try and potentially fail to learn dance
Speaker 1: choreography off of YouTube. Chances are you're doing at least
Speaker 1: one of those on a regular basis, and you have
Speaker 1: one small, but mighty brain structure to thank for it,
Speaker 1: the cerebellum, named for the Latin term for little brain
Speaker 1: and hanging off the back of the main brain. This
Speaker 1: adorable sounding anatomical feature packs a major punch for its
Speaker 1: diminutive size. For the article of this episode is based
Speaker 1: on has to Work. Spoke by email with Genese Wiseman,
Speaker 1: m D, a clinical associate professor in the Department of
Speaker 1: Neurology at the n y U S School of Medicine.
Speaker 1: She said the brain weighs about three pounds one point
Speaker 1: three kilos, and the cerebellum makes up about ten percent
Speaker 1: of that. It's made up of free lobes the vermice
Speaker 1: in the center of vermics means worms in Latin, and
Speaker 1: it's a long, thin structure that looks like a worm
Speaker 1: and a cerebellar hemisphere on each side of that. Housta
Speaker 1: Works also spoke via email with Daniel Friedman, d O,
Speaker 1: a pediatric neurophysiology fellow at Nationwide Children's Hospital. He said
Speaker 1: it weighs about five ounces a hundred forty grams. It's
Speaker 1: the coordination center of the brain and receives a large
Speaker 1: amount of sensory input from the spinal cord and brain
Speaker 1: regarding the body's movements and position. It uses this information
Speaker 1: to maintain smooth, coordinated movements a wheel. Get to how
Speaker 1: the cerebellum translates all that input into action in a second,
Speaker 1: but first let's go deeper on this brain structures structure
Speaker 1: how staff Works also spoke via email with Parnete Growl,
Speaker 1: a fellow at Rush University Medical Center. She said it
Speaker 1: has a beautiful branched appearance, which is very unique. It
Speaker 1: has a complex circuitry, Friedman said. When put in half,
Speaker 1: the branching pattern of the cerebellar, white matter required to
Speaker 1: connect all the folia Latin for leaves can be seen.
Speaker 1: This resembles a head of cauliflower or broccoli and is
Speaker 1: referred to as the arbor vitae Latin for tree of life.
Speaker 1: Appearances aside, the cerebellum plays a major role in a
Speaker 1: variety of everyday functions. A Weissman explained, the vermice is
Speaker 1: most associated with coordinating movement of the trunk and legs,
Speaker 1: and the cerebellar hemispheres work to coordinate the movement of
Speaker 1: the arms, hands, and fingers. The cerebellum coordinates voluntary movements
Speaker 1: like posture, balance, coordination, and speech, resulting in smooth muscle movements.
Speaker 1: The cerebellum gets sensory input from the joints in the
Speaker 1: limbs in the trunk and also from the motor areas
Speaker 1: of the brain, the parts that plan and direct movement.
Speaker 1: The cerebellum matches those two inputs to make sure that
Speaker 1: the limb or unk is doing what the motor cortex
Speaker 1: in the brain wants it to. This is how you
Speaker 1: can walk a straight line, or close your eyes and
Speaker 1: touch your nose without missing. It coordinates the movement of
Speaker 1: your eyes so that you can smoothly track an object.
Speaker 1: It also coordinates the muscles of swallowing and speech so
Speaker 1: you don't choke on your food, and so you can say,
Speaker 1: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. But according
Speaker 1: to research published in October in the journal Neuron, all
Speaker 1: these important functions are just part of the picture. The
Speaker 1: cerebellum is apparently capable of a whole lot more, A
Speaker 1: Wiseman said. Recently, scientists have found that this most well
Speaker 1: known function may be only one of many functions of
Speaker 1: the cerebellum, and only involved it. Other functions include modulation
Speaker 1: of emotion, memory, language, and abstract thinking. Alike with movement,
Speaker 1: the cerebellum monitors these functions to make sure that they're
Speaker 1: being done the right way. It's been referred to as
Speaker 1: the editor of the brain. With all of this responsibility,
Speaker 1: you can't help but wonder what might happen if the
Speaker 1: cerebellum were to experience any kind of damage, A Freedman said.
Speaker 1: The primary symptom of a damaged cerebellum is a taxia,
Speaker 1: or uncoordinated movement. Permanent damage to the cerebellum can come
Speaker 1: from stroke, tumors, infection, or alcohol use. A taxia can
Speaker 1: also be temporary, as seen in alcohol intoxication. Oh When
Speaker 1: police officers conduct a roadside sobriety test, they're checking cerebellar
Speaker 1: function by having you touch finger to nose or walk
Speaker 1: a straight line, a Weistman said. Symptoms and signs of
Speaker 1: cerebellar disease include difficulty coordinating movements such as walking, moving
Speaker 1: the arms, and coordinating the muscles of swallowing in speech
Speaker 1: into a smooth pattern, and people can have trouble with
Speaker 1: balance of moving the arms and hands in the way
Speaker 1: they want a swallowing and coordinating the voice when they speak,
Speaker 1: and the speech can sound slurred. Cerebellar damage can cause
Speaker 1: a tremor of the limbs, trunk, or voice. Because the
Speaker 1: cerebellum also regulates smooth movements of the eyes of people
Speaker 1: with cerebellar damage may also experience double vision or abnormal
Speaker 1: eye movements, and because the cerebellum is apparently a player
Speaker 1: in cognitive and emotional function, researchers believed damage could contribute
Speaker 1: to mental illnesses like schizophrenia. While all of this sophisticated
Speaker 1: circuitry certainly may seem exclusively reserved for human brains, the
Speaker 1: cerebellum predates us by a long shot, and other vertebrates
Speaker 1: have cerebellums that vary in size and shape but work similarly.
Speaker 1: Elephants have the biggest that we know of. Al Weisman
Speaker 1: said The cerebellum is an evolutionarily old structure hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of years old, found in fish and reptiles as
Speaker 1: well as mammals. After all, fish have to swim straight
Speaker 1: since the cerebellar, vermis and hemispheres coordinate different parts of
Speaker 1: the body. As you look up the evolutionary scale, as
Speaker 1: animals begin to use their hands in a way different
Speaker 1: from their legs, they're cerebellar hemispheres get larger. But which
Speaker 1: came first, the structure or the action. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article The cerebellum is the Body's Little
Speaker 1: brain on house to works dot com, written by Michelle Konstantonovsky.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with house to works dot com, and it's produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
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