Andrea Ciricugno, Viola Oldrati, Zaira Cattaneo, Maria Leggio, Cosimo Urgesi, Giusy Olivito
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Beyond motor deficits, spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) patients also suffer cognitive decline and show socio-affective difficulties, negatively impacting on their social functioning. The possibility to modulate cerebello-cerebral networks involved in social cognition through cerebellar neurostimulation has opened up potential therapeutic applications for ameliorating social and affective difficulties. The present review offers an overview of the research on cerebellar neurostimulation for the modulation of socio-affective functions in both healthy individuals and different clinical populations, published in the time period 2000-2022. A total of 25 records reporting either transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) studies were found. The investigated clinical populations comprised different pathological conditions, including but not limited to SCA syndromes. The reviewed evidence supports that cerebellar neurostimulation is effective in improving social abilities in healthy individuals and reducing social and affective symptoms in different neurological and psychiatric populations associated with cerebellar damage or with impairments in functions that involve the cerebellum. These findings encourage to further explore the rehabilitative effects of cerebellar neurostimulation on socio-affective deficits experienced by patients with cerebellar abnormalities, as SCA patients. Nevertheless, conclusions remain tentative at this stage due to the heterogeneity characterizing stimulation protocols, study methodologies and patients' samples.
期刊介绍:
Official publication of the Society for Research on the Cerebellum devoted to genetics of cerebellar ataxias, role of cerebellum in motor control and cognitive function, and amid an ageing population, diseases associated with cerebellar dysfunction.
The Cerebellum is a central source for the latest developments in fundamental neurosciences including molecular and cellular biology; behavioural neurosciences and neurochemistry; genetics; fundamental and clinical neurophysiology; neurology and neuropathology; cognition and neuroimaging.
The Cerebellum benefits neuroscientists in molecular and cellular biology; neurophysiologists; researchers in neurotransmission; neurologists; radiologists; paediatricians; neuropsychologists; students of neurology and psychiatry and others.