The cerebellar clock: predicting and timing somatosensory touch

Abstract

0The prediction of sensory feedback is known to involve the cerebellum, but its precise nature and timing have remained unclear due to the scarcity of time-sensitive cerebellar neuroimaging studies. We here, using magnetoencephalography in human participants, investigated the working hypothesis that one function of the cerebellum is to predict exactly when rhythmic stimuli are expected to impinge on sensory receptors. We compared the cerebellums response between somatosensory omissions embedded in perfectly rhythmic versus jittered trains of stimulation. At the precise moment that an omitted stimulus would have appeared, the cerebellum exhibited a beta band (14-30 Hz) response that was stronger when preceded by a perfectly rhythmic sequence. Meanwhile, the rhythm of new stimulation sequences induced theta band (4-7 Hz) activity in the cerebellum. Our results provide evidence that the cerebellum acts as a clock that entrains to rhythmic stimuli, likely for the purpose of detecting any deviations from that rhythm.