The cerebellum and motor dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders

The University of Birmingham (Live System) The cerebellum and motor dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders

The cerebellum is densely interconnected with sensory-motor areas of the cerebral cortex, and in man, the great expansion of the association areas of cerebral cortex is also paralleled by an expansion of the lateral cerebellar hemispheres. It is therefore likely that these circuits contribute to non-motor cognitive functions, but this is still a controversial issue. One approach is to examine e...

Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Mitochondrial disorders were first described in 1962 (Luft, Ikkos, Palmieri, Ernster, & Afzelius, 1962), and were initially thought to be uniformly progressive and fatal with onset in infancy or early childhood, typically associated with severe neurological manifestations, including strokelike episodes, seizures, neuronal degeneration, organ failure and dementia. More recently, clinical observa...

Is the cerebellum relevant in the circuitry of neuropsychiatric disorders?

Contemporary mechanistic models of several psychiatric disorders propose abnormalities in the structure and function of distinct neural networks. The cerebellum has both anatomic and functional connections to the prefrontal cortex, the subcortical limbic structures and monoamine-producing brainstem nuclei. Conspicuously, however, the cerebellum has been underemphasized in neuropsychiatric resea...

Gut Microbiota and Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Epigenetic RELN Dysfunction in Schizophrenia and Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders

REELIN (RELN) is a large (420 kDa) glycoprotein that in adulthood is mostly synthesized in GABAergic neurons of corticolimbic structures. Upon secretion in the extracellular matrix (ECM), RELN binds to VLDL, APOE2, and α3β2 Integrin receptors located on dendritic shafts and spines of postsynaptic pyramidal neurons. Reduced levels of RELN expression in the adult brain induce cognitive impairment...