Classical conditioning after cerebellar lesions in humans.

We explored classical conditioning in human subjects who had lesions in their cerebellar circuitry. Seven patients with damage to cerebellar structures and matched control subjects underwent simple delay tone-airpuff conditioning. Eyelid conditioned response (CR) acquisition was severely disrupted in the patient group, whereas autonomic CRs and slow cortical potentials developing between conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) were unaffected. Results are consistent with animal studies and earlier case reports indicating that intact cerebellar structures are necessary for the acquisition of classically conditioned motor responses.

[1]  S. Keele,et al.  Does the Cerebellum Provide a Common Computation for Diverse Tasks? A Timing Hypothesis a , 1990, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[2]  G. A. Clark,et al.  Effects of lesions of cerebellar nuclei on conditioned behavioral and hippocampal neuronal responses , 1984, Brain Research.

[3]  D. Powell,et al.  Lesions of substantia nigra retard pavlovian somatomotor learning but do not affect autonomic conditioning , 1986, Neuroscience Letters.

[4]  B. Rockstroh,et al.  Removal of ocular artifacts from the EEG--a biophysical approach to the EOG. , 1985, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[5]  A. Harding.  The hereditary ataxias and related disorders , 1984 .

[6]  J. Bloedel,et al.  Classical conditioning of the eyeblink reflex in the decerebrate-decerebellate rabbit , 1990, Behavioural Brain Research.

[7]  J. Welsh,et al.  Cerebellar lesions and the nictitating membrane reflex: performance deficits of the conditioned and unconditioned response , 1989, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[8]  J. Gray,et al.  Classical conditioning after temporal lobe lesions in man: sparing of simple discrimination and extinction , 1992, Behavioural Brain Research.

[9]  A. Schell.  Human autonomic and skeletal classical conditioning: The role of conscious cognitive factors. , 1987 .

[10]  D. A. McCormick,et al.  Effect of bilateral lesions of the dentate and interpositus cerebellar nuclei on conditioning of heart-rate and nictitating membrane/eyelid responses in the rabbit , 1984, Brain Research.

[11]  I. Daum,et al.  Classical conditioning after temporal lobe lesions in man: impairment in conditional discrimination. , 1991, Behavioral neuroscience.

[12]  R. F. Thompson,et al.  Cerebellum: essential involvement in the classically conditioned eyelid response. , 1984, Science.

[13]  Theodore W. Berger,et al.  Hippocampal substrate of classical conditioning , 1980 .

[14]  P. Solomon,et al.  Disrupted eyelid conditioning in a patient with damage to cerebellar afferents. , 1989, Behavioral neuroscience.

[15]  Richard F. Thompson,et al.  Are eyeblink responses to tone in the decerebrate, decerebellate rabbit conditioned responses? , 1991, Behavioural Brain Research.

[16]  Alan S. Brown,et al.  Fundamentals and applications of learning , 1977 .

[17]  I. Daum,et al.  Classical conditioning in patients with severe memory problems. , 1989, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[18]  G. Davey,et al.  Cognitive processes and Pavlovian conditioning in humans , 1987 .

[19]  N. Birbaumer,et al.  The cerebellum and cognitive functions in humans. , 1993, Behavioral neuroscience.

[20]  M. Hallett,et al.  Motor learning in patients with cerebellar dysfunction. , 1990, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[21]  R. F. Thompson,et al.  Disruption of classical eyelid conditioning after cerebellar lesions: damage to a memory trace system or a simple performance deficit? , 1992, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[22]  John T. Cacioppo,et al.  Techniques in Psychophysiology , 1980 .

[23]  Richard F. Thompson.  Are memory traces localized or distributed? , 1991, Neuropsychologia.

[24]  C. E. Polkey,et al.  The effect of categorization on verbal memory after temporal lobectomy , 1989, Neuropsychologia.

[25]  J. Bloedel.  The cerebellum and memory storage. , 1987, Science.

[26]  Richard F. Thompson.  The neural basis of basic associative learning of discrete behavioral responses , 1988, Trends in Neurosciences.