Listen "E39: What Does the Cerebellum Do? "
Episode Synopsis
Cerebellum literally means "little brain," and in a way, it has been treated as a second-class citizen in neuroscience for awhile. In this episode we describe the traditional view of the cerebellum as a circuit for motor control and associative learning and how its more cognitive roles have been overlooked. First we talk about the beautiful architecture of the cerebellum and the functions of its different cell types, including the benefits of diversity. We then discuss the evidence for non-motor functions of the cerebellum and why this evidence was hard to find until recently. During this, we struggle to explain what cognitive issues someone with a cerebellar lesion may have and special guest/cerebellum expert Alex Cayco-Gajic tests our cerebellar function. Finally, we end by lamenting the fact that good science is impossible and Alex tells us how the future of neuroscience is subcortical!
More episodes of the podcast Unsupervised Thinking
E50: Brain Organoids
30/10/2019
E50: Brain Organoids
30/10/2019
E49: How Important is Learning?
30/09/2019
E47: Deep Learning to Understand the Brain
30/07/2019
E46: What We Learn from Model Organisms
26/06/2019
E45: How Working Memory Works
28/05/2019
E44: Can a Biologist Fix a Radio?
25/04/2019
E43: What Are Glia Up to?
28/03/2019
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.