What does the cerebellum do?
sarahconstantin.substack.com
What does the cerebellum do?
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Re: What does the cerebellum do?
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Re: What does the cerebellum do?
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Re: What does the cerebellum do?
#4> The cerebellum has a repeated, almost crystal-like neural structure:
As a software engineer who did neurosurgery residency, my intuition/guess is that the cerebellum is kind of like the FPGA of the brain.
The cerebrum is great for doing very complicated novel tasks, but it takes time and energy. The cerebellum on the other hand is specialized in being able to encode common tasks so it can do them with quickly and efficiently. A lot of our motor learning is in fact wiring the cerebellum correctly.
This can actually lead to an interesting amnesia, where a person can learn a skill (cerebellum) but not remember learning the skill (cerebrum). So you could end up with a person who would think that he had never seen a basketball hoop or basketball before but could be doing layups, dunks, and 3 pointers with ease.
Re: What does the cerebellum do?
#5> The cerebellum has a repeated, almost crystal-like neural structure: As a software engineer who did neurosurgery residency, my intuition/guess is that the cerebellum is kind of like the FPGA of the brain. The cerebrum is great for doing very complicated novel tasks, but it takes time and energy. The cerebellum on the other hand is specialized in being able to encode common tasks so it can do them with quickly and e…
What a great comment, seriously.
It just made me start thinking and then I realized perhaps another analogy is a just in time compiler where code or skills used often enough, your body manages to compile into native neurological code and stores that appropriately.
Re: What does the cerebellum do?
#6> It seems weird to have a whole separate organ for “make motor and cognitive skills work somewhat better.”
Does it? I’d think this was an absolute gimme.
Re: What does the cerebellum do?
#7> The cerebellum has a repeated, almost crystal-like neural structure: As a software engineer who did neurosurgery residency, my intuition/guess is that the cerebellum is kind of like the FPGA of the brain. The cerebrum is great for doing very complicated novel tasks, but it takes time and energy. The cerebellum on the other hand is specialized in being able to encode common tasks so it can do them with quickly and e…
What a great comment, seriously. It just made me start thinking and then I realized perhaps another analogy is a just in time compiler where code or skills used often enough, your body manages to compile into native neurological code and stores that appropriately.
Both are spot on examples on what the cerebellum does. If I may, a third example/analogy that comes to mind is cache memory or L2ARC drives, at least that’s how I have it stored in my mind (pun intended) :-)
Re: What does the cerebellum do?
#8> The cerebellum has a repeated, almost crystal-like neural structure: As a software engineer who did neurosurgery residency, my intuition/guess is that the cerebellum is kind of like the FPGA of the brain. The cerebrum is great for doing very complicated novel tasks, but it takes time and energy. The cerebellum on the other hand is specialized in being able to encode common tasks so it can do them with quickly and e…
What signals cause rewiring of the cerebellum?
Is there any way to induce that state exogenously?
Some thoughts include dopamine / pain receptor reinforced learning. Maybe there's a faster way?
Re: What does the cerebellum do?
#9My overall read on this article is that its claims are probably overconfident. Like, it seems interesting, but like she's seeing a few results and making big claims about how the cerebellum plays into overall cognition, and my general sense is that lots of humility is usually warranted here: that simple and decisive statements usually turn out to be riddled with provisos and unexplained behavior.
Re: What does the cerebellum do?
#10> The cerebellum has a repeated, almost crystal-like neural structure: As a software engineer who did neurosurgery residency, my intuition/guess is that the cerebellum is kind of like the FPGA of the brain. The cerebrum is great for doing very complicated novel tasks, but it takes time and energy. The cerebellum on the other hand is specialized in being able to encode common tasks so it can do them with quickly and e…
> A lot of our motor learning is in fact wiring the cerebellum correctly.
That got me interested: since the wiring is so long (from limbs to cerebellum), what kinds of motor learning?
Do we know, if cerebellum needs more energy than the rest of the brain?