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Inability to Process Negative Emotions in Cerebellar Damage: a Functional Transcranial Doppler Sonographic Study

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Abstract

Recent studies have implicated the cerebellum as part of a circuitry that is necessary to modulate higher order and behaviorally relevant information in emotional domains. However, little is known about the relationship between the cerebellum and emotional processing. This study examined cerebellar function specifically in the processing of negative emotions. Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography was performed to detect selective changes in middle cerebral artery flow velocity during emotional stimulation in patients affected by focal or degenerative cerebellar lesions and in matched healthy subjects. Changes in flow velocity during non-emotional (motor and cognitive tasks) and emotional (relaxing and negative stimuli) conditions were recorded. In the present study, we found that during negative emotional task, the hemodynamic pattern of the cerebellar patients was significantly different to that of controls. Indeed, whereas relaxing stimuli did not elicit an increase in mean flow velocity in any group, negative stimuli increased the mean flow velocity in the right compared with left middle cerebral artery only in the control group. The patterns by which mean flow velocity increased during the motor and cognitive tasks were similar within patients and controls. These findings support that the cerebellum is part of a network that gives meaning to external stimuli, and this particular involvement in processing negative emotional stimuli corroborates earlier phylogenetic hypotheses, for which the cerebellum is part of an older circuit in which negative emotions are crucial for survival and prepare the organism for rapid defense.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health (RC08G).

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185, Rome, Italy

    Michela Lupo, Francesca R. Chiricozzi, Silvia Clausi & Maria Leggio

  2. Ataxia Laboratory, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179, Rome, Italy

    Michela Lupo, Francesca R. Chiricozzi, Silvia Clausi & Maria Leggio

  3. IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179, Rome, Italy

    Elio Troisi

  4. Neurological and Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Department A, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179, Rome, Italy

    Marco Molinari

Authors
  1. Michela Lupo
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  2. Elio Troisi
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  3. Francesca R. Chiricozzi
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  4. Silvia Clausi
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  5. Marco Molinari
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  6. Maria Leggio
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Correspondence to Maria Leggio.

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Lupo, M., Troisi, E., Chiricozzi, F.R. et al. Inability to Process Negative Emotions in Cerebellar Damage: a Functional Transcranial Doppler Sonographic Study. Cerebellum 14, 663–669 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-015-0662-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-015-0662-z

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