The Neurological Field Continues to Update

Three part series in the Annals of Neurology explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping modern neurology, aiming to make core AI concepts more accessible to clinicians and neuroscientists.

With respect to the history of functions successively attributed to it, the cerebellum is perhaps one of the most remarkable parts of the central nervous system. Five years ago, I wrote about vital functions attributed to the cerebellum (“Early Ideas on the Localization of Vital Functions: From Cerebellum to Medulla Oblongata,” World Neurology, Winter 2019). This was particularly true in the 17th and 18th centuries when it was initially thought that the cerebellum was a vital organ. More careful experiments gradually revealed that this was not the case. The ideas regarding nonmotor functions of the cerebellum, however, are more numerous than that.