Ricerc@Sapienza

Sporadically advocated over the last two centuries, a cerebellar role in cognition and affect has been rigorously established in the past few decades. In the clinical domain, such progress is epitomized by the ‘cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome’ (‘CCAS’) or ‘Schmahmann syndrome’. Introduced in the late 1990s, CCAS reflects a constellation of cerebellar-induced sequelae, comprising deficits in executive function, visuospatial cognition, emotion-affect, and language, over and above speech.

Even at low to moderate doses, ingestion of the widely used recreational drug alcohol (ethanol) can impact cognitive and emotional processing. Recent studies show that the sense of agency (SoA; ie, the subjective experience of voluntary control over actions) can be modulated by specific pharmacological manipulations. The SoA, as quantified by the intentional binding (IB) paradigm, is enhanced by direct or indirect dopaminergic agonists in patients with Parkinson's disease and by ketamine (an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist) in healthy individuals.