Synonyms
Medical: Cerebellum (lat.)
Introduction
If the cerebellum is damaged, specific neurological symptoms may occur.
Ataxia
When the cerebellum is damaged (lesion) in any form (by bleeding, tumor, poisoning (intoxication), cerebellar atrophy, inflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis and other damages) the primary symptom is ataxia. The word is taken from the Greek, where ataxia means disorder. Ataxia can occur in different forms.
In trunk ataxia, the patient cannot sit upright without aids, in stand ataxia the same applies to the upright position. In gang ataxia (the word ataxia is often used as a synonym for this form of coordination disorder), patients show an unsteady gait. In another form of ataxia – afferent ataxia (as described above, afferre means as much as to feed), there are major problems in the execution of target motor functions (e.g. reaching for something).
Scrolling language
Another symptom of the cerebellar lesion is the so-called chanting language (according to Charcot, term comes from Latin and means bumpy, blurred, indistinct), which is caused by the fact that muscles are involved in speaking words as much as in standing or walking. And the fine-tuning of these muscles is disturbed by damage to the cerebellum, just as in ataxia.
General notes
The typical symptoms listed above, such as unsteady, unsteady gait, balance problems, difficulties in executing specific movements and coordinating different movements, as well as slurred speech, can be observed – reversibly – in the case of excessive alcohol consumption. An interesting experiment on the symptomatology of severe cerebellar lesions is the following: A patient with such damage throws a few darts on a dartboard without having any significant problems. He is then fitted with glasses that shift everything around him by 15 degrees.
(A so-called prism glasses). The dartboard now seems to be 15 degrees further to the right/left in his eyes, so that he will throw in exactly this different direction for the first time. After the throw he takes off the glasses and checks his throwing result.
A healthy person would be able to compensate for the false vision that the glasses force on him by simply throwing 15 degrees against the direction that is suggested to him and hitting the dartboard again. A patient with a cerebellar lesion, on the other hand, is unable to adapt to this new situation, no matter how often he tries, he will permanently miss the dartboard by 15 degrees. The cerebellum therefore plays a major role here in compensating for visual misinformation.
