The Role of the Cerebellum in Speech Perception and Language Comprehension

Although a significant contribution of the cerebellum to motor performance, including speech production, has been widely acknowledged for many decades, more recent studies also point at a specific role in speech perception and linguistic functions. A variety of investigations have revealed cerebellar involvement in sensory-perceptual and higher order linguistic processing such as primary auditory mechanisms, speech timing, phonological aspects of lexical access, top-down operations handling expectations of upcoming perceptual events, morphosyntactic operations, and verbal working memory. Further evidence in this regard can be gleaned from anatomical structures such as the cerebellar connections with supratentorial regions: Besides primary motor, premotor, and supplementary motor cortex, the target regions of corticocerebellar loops also comprise unimodal sensory-perceptual and supramodal association areas. Although, presumably, not engaged in routine perception and comprehension tasks, the cerebellum appears to come into play under conditions of enhanced cognitive demands with regard to processing speed, perceptual precision, memory load, and task complexity.