ArticleCerebellum (London, England)2024
The Role of the Cerebellum in Learning to Predict Reward: Evidence from Cerebellar Ataxia.
Article in Cerebellum (London, England), 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impulsivity, Compulsivity, Social Inappropriateness, and Other Neuropsychiatric Features in Cerebellar Histiocytosis.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2026Pooled it
- The Role of the Human Cerebellum for Learning from and Processing of External Feedback in Non-Motor Learning: A Systematic Review.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2024Pooled it
- Unsupervised nonmotor learning in the human cerebellum.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The Human Cerebellum Encodes Temporally Sensitive Reinforcement Learning Signals.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- The Periaqueductal Gray Selectively Supports Reversal Learning During a Flexible Discrimination Task in Mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- From Neuroadaptation to Neuroprogression: Rethinking Chronic Cocaine Exposure Through a Model of Cocaine-Related Cerebropathy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Impulsivity in cerebellar ataxia: an online, multidimensional assessment.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Article
- Consensus Paper: Models of Cerebellar Functions.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2026Review
- Article
- The human cerebellum encodes temporally sensitive reinforcement learning signals.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Continuous theta burst stimulation to the medial posterior cerebellum impairs reversal learning in healthy volunteers.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Roles and interplay of reinforcement-based and error-based processes during reaching and gait in neurotypical adults and individuals with Parkinson's disease.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Recent findings in animals have challenged the traditional view of the cerebellum solely as the site of motor control, suggesting that the cerebellum may also be important for learning to predict reward from trial-and-error feedback. Yet, evidence for the role of the cerebellum in reward learning in humans is lacking. Moreover, open questions remain about which specific aspects of reward learning the cerebellum may contribute to. Here we address this gap through an investigation of multiple forms of reward learning in individuals with cerebellum dysfunction, represented by cerebellar ataxia cases. Nineteen participants with cerebellar ataxia and 57 age- and sex-matched healthy controls completed two separate tasks that required learning about reward contingencies from trial-and-error. To probe the selectivity of reward learning processes, the tasks differed in their underlying structure: while one task measured incremental reward learning ability alone, the other allowed participants to use an alternative learning strategy based on episodic memory alongside incremental reward learning. We found that individuals with cerebellar ataxia were profoundly impaired at reward learning from trial-and-error feedback on both tasks, but retained the ability to learn to predict reward based on episodic memory. These findings provide evidence from humans for a specific and necessary role for the cerebellum in incremental learning of reward associations based on reinforcement. More broadly, the findings suggest that alongside its role in motor learning, the cerebellum likely operates in concert with the basal ganglia to support reinforcement learning from reward.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.