Biology subjects

Magielse, N.

Publications and source records attributed to Magielse, N..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Cerebellar growth is associated with domain-specific cerebral maturation and socio-linguistic behavioral outcomes

The cerebellums involvement in cognitive functions is increasingly recognized, yet its developmental contribution to cognition remains poorly understood. The cerebellum undergoes rapid development in early life, paralleling major cognitive and behavioral changes. Although clinical studies have linked early cerebellar disruptions to profound developmental deficits, it remains largely unclear how typical cerebellar maturation supports the development of cognitive functions and how it interacts with broader brain development. Here, we apply a normative modeling framework to map cerebellar volumetric growth from infancy to young adulthood (N = 751; ages 1-21 years). Using lobular and functional cerebellar parcellations, we comprehensively characterize typical cerebellar development and examine how it aligns with cerebral development and behavioral outcomes. Across parcellations, posterior higher association areas consistently show steeper growth trajectories than anterior sensorimotor areas. Cerebellar and cerebral areas with similar functional roles demonstrate coordinated maturation, and volumetric growth in the posterior cerebellum relates to individual differences in socio-linguistic behaviors. These findings establish a comprehensive reference for typical cerebellar development, highlight cerebellar co-maturation with the cerebral cortex, and underscore the cerebellums role in supporting emerging higher cognitive functions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Bias-accounting meta-analyses overcome cerebellar neglect to refine the cerebellar behavioral topography

The cerebellum plays important roles in motor, cognitive, and emotional behaviors. Previous cerebellar coordinate-based meta-analyses (CBMAs) have complemented precision-mapping and parcellation approaches by finding generalizable cerebellar activations across the largest possible set of behaviors. However, cerebellar CBMAs face challenges due to inherent methodological limitations exacerbated by historical cerebellar neglect in neuroimaging. Here, we show overrepresentation of superior activations, rendering the null hypothesis of standard activation likelihood estimation (ALE) unsuitable. Our new method, cerebellum-specific ALE (C-SALE), finds behavioral convergence beyond baseline activation rates. It does this by testing experimental activations versus null models sampled from a data-driven probability distribution of finding activations at any cerebellar location. Task-specific mappings in the BrainMap meta-analytic database illustrated improved specificity of the new method. Multiple (sub)domains reached convergence in specific cerebellar subregions, supporting dual motor representations and placing cognition in posterior-lateral regions. We show our method and findings were replicable within NeuroSynth. Across both databases, 54/138 task domains or behavioral terms, including sustained attention, somesthesis, inference, anticipation and rhythm, reached convergence in specific cerebellar subgregions. Maps largely corresponded with cerebellar atlases but also showed many complementary mappings. Repeated subsampling showed that motor behaviors, and to a lesser extent language and working memory, mapped to especially consistent cerebellar subregions. Lastly, we found that cerebellar clusters were parts of brain-wide coactivation networks with cortical and subcortical regions implied in these behaviors. Together, our method further complements and expands understanding of cerebellar involvement in human behavior, highlighting regions for future investigation in both basic and clinical applications. Highlights[bullet] Biases in reported cerebellar activations strongly favors superior regions. [bullet]A new method of meta-analysis increases cerebellar mapping specificity and accuracy. [bullet]Large-scale meta-analyses support cerebellar roles in cognitive, affective, and motor behaviors. [bullet]54 task domains/ terms converged, including sustained attention, somesthesis, inference, anticipation and rhythm. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=100 SRC="FIGDIR/small/621398v3_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (33K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@716ea0org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@11601fforg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1dd1208org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@caf535_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG Graphical abstract C_FIG

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Primate Cerebellar Scaling in Connection to the Cerebrum: A 34-Species Phylogenetic Comparative Analysis

The cerebellum has increasingly been recognized for its role in diverse functional processes. The reciprocally connected cerebello-cerebral system may scaffold both brain size increase and advanced associative abilities, evolving highly coordinately in primates. In parallel, functional cerebello-cerebral modules have undergone reorganization and cerebellar lobules crura I-II (the ansiform area across mammals) have been reported to be specifically expanded in humans. Here we manually segmented 63 cerebella (34 primate species; 9 infraorders) and 30 crura I-II (13 species; 8 infraorders). We show that both constraints and reorganization may shape the evolution of the primate cerebello-cerebral system. Using phylogenetic generalized least squares, we find that the cerebellum scales isometrically with the cerebral cortex, whereas crura I-II scale hyper-allometrically versus both. Our phylogenetic analyses evidence primate-general crura I-II hyperscaling in contrast to virtually isometric cerebello-cerebral scaling. Crura I-II hyperscaling may be important for associative and cognitive brain functions in an evolutionary context.

evolutionary biology↗