Spatial and Temporal Organization of the Individual Human Cerebellum

Highlights

• Individual-specific functional brain networks can be elucidated in the cerebellum

• Inter-individual variance in cerebellar functional networks exceeds that of cortex

• The frontoparietal control network is 2-fold overrepresented in the cerebellum

• Cerebellar BOLD signals temporally lag the cortex by hundreds of milliseconds

Summary

The cerebellum contains the majority of neurons in the human brain and is unique for its uniform cytoarchitecture, absence of aerobic glycolysis, and role in adaptive plasticity. Despite anatomical and physiological differences between the cerebellum and cerebral cortex, group-average functional connectivity studies have identified networks related to specific functions in both structures. Recently, precision functional mapping of individuals revealed that functional networks in the cerebral cortex exhibit measurable individual specificity. Using the highly sampled Midnight Scan Club (MSC) dataset, we found the cerebellum contains reliable, individual-specific network organization that is significantly more variable than the cerebral cortex. The frontoparietal network, thought to support adaptive control, was the only network overrepresented in the cerebellum compared to the cerebral cortex (2.3-fold). Temporally, all cerebellar resting state signals lagged behind the cerebral cortex (125–380 ms), supporting the hypothesis that the cerebellum engages in a domain-general function in the adaptive control of all cortical processes.