{"id":35774,"date":"2017-03-31T18:24:02","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T01:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/neuroscientists-have-accidentally-discovered-a-whole-new-role-for-the-cerebellum"},"modified":"2017-04-25T19:51:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T02:51:51","slug":"neuroscientists-have-accidentally-discovered-a-whole-new-role-for-the-cerebellum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/neuroscientists-have-accidentally-discovered-a-whole-new-role-for-the-cerebellum","title":{"rendered":"Neuroscientists Have Accidentally Discovered a Whole New Role for the Cerebellum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/neuroscientists-have-accidentally-discovered-a-whole-new-role-for-the-cerebellum.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the best-known regions of the brain, the cerebellum accounts for just 10 percent of the organ\u2019s total volume, but contains more than <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com.au\/books?id=pZHtlD7Ife8C&amp;pg=PT27&amp;lpg=PT27&amp;dq=cerebellum+accounts+for+50+percent+of+neurons&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=vaLirX8hR7&amp;sig=vlvLsjdNUsijAoLiJiEPwn6KFMc&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjPns6zrebSAhVNNrwKHYEeBCkQ6AEIQjAH#v=onepage&amp;q=cerebellum%20accounts%20for%2050%20percent%20of%20neurons&amp;f=false\">50 percent<\/a> of its neurons.<\/p>\n<p>Despite all that processing power, it\u2019s been assumed that the cerebellum functions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dartmouth.edu\/~rswenson\/NeuroSci\/chapter_8B.html\">largely outside<\/a> the realm of conscious awareness, instead coordinating physical activities like standing and breathing. But now neuroscientists have discovered that it plays an important role in the reward response \u2014 one of the main drives that motivate and shape human behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>Not only does this open up new research possibilities for the little region that has for centuries been primarily linked motor skills and sensory input, but it suggests that the neurons that make up much of the cerebellum \u2014 called granule cells \u2014 are functioning in ways we never anticipated.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/neuroscientists-just-accidentally-discovered-a-whole-new-role-for-the-cerebellum\">http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/neuroscientists-just-accidentall...cerebellum<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the best-known regions of the brain, the cerebellum accounts for just 10 percent of the organ\u2019s total volume, but contains more than 50 percent of its neurons. Despite all that processing power, it\u2019s been assumed that the cerebellum functions largely outside the realm of conscious awareness, instead coordinating physical activities like standing and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48314,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35774\/revisions\/48314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}