Cherie Marvel, PhD, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Associate Professor of Neurology

The cerebellum helps coordinate movement using feedforward control, which relies on the initiation of motor output before sensory feedback is available to make adjustments. We hypothesize that this process also applies to cognition, and that the cerebellum plays an important role in the feedforward process that initiates thought sequences. In this talk, we will discuss cerebellar contributions to cognition and explore the cognitive deficits that can arise when feedforward control of cognition is disrupted by cerebellar injury. Specifically, examples of cognitive deficits in patients with cerebellar degeneration will be presented.