Cerebellum and Emotion Processing.

Clinical examinations and neuroimaging investigations have dramatically changed the prevailing view of human cerebellar function and suggest contributions beyond movement control. Of these new views, perhaps the most intriguing proposal is that the cerebellum plays a key role in regulating emotion. According to the dysmetria of thought theory, the cerebellum provides accuracy, consistency and appropriateness to cognitive and affective functions, as it does for movement-related operations. Despite the value of a universal theory on cerebellar function, it is also essential to consider its unique contributions to specific functional domains. This chapter aims to provide an accentuated account of the cerebellar role in emotion processing by separately evaluating its impact for sub-components of emotion processing. These include physiological responses that contribute to the subjective or "feeling" component of emotion, emotional expressions that serve essential social-communicative functions, and the cognitive appraisal process that determines the emotional significance of events and therefore affects the generation and modulation of emotions.