Functional imaging of the deep cerebellar nuclei: a review

The present mini-review focused on functional imaging of human deep cerebellar nuclei, mainly the dentate nucleus. Although these nuclei represent the unique output channel of the cerebellum, few data are available concerning their functional role. However, the dentate nucleus has been shown to participate in a widespread functional network including sensorimotor and associative cortices, striatum, hypothalamus, and thalamus, and plays a minor role in motor execution and a major role in sensorimotor coordination and learning, and cognition. The dentate nucleus appears to be predominantly involved in conjunction with the neocerebellum in executive and affective networks devoted, at least, to attention, working memory, procedural reasoning, and salience detection.