Talk:Cerebellum

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Contents 1 Oops! 2 Human-oriented 3 Percent cerebellum by total brain volume 4 Tensor Theory

[edit] Oops!

The edits by 169.229.158.2 made today were mine. I forgot to log in. If there's anything wrong, you know who to blame now. Semiconscious (talk · home) 21:28, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Human-oriented

Since the majority of this article is focused on the human cerebellum and biology, I feel we should indicate this somehow. Should each section start with the phrase, "In humans..." or something similar, or should we simply put some sort of disclaimer at the beginning of the article? It's implied that this is mainly about human physiology, but not every section applies solely to humans, so I feel we should directly state it somewhere. Ideas? semiconscious (talk · home) 14:07, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

• Hey there. I think that most things in here apply to cerebella of other species, except maybe the details of the gross anatomy. But the function, microcircuitry, major divisions, inputs and outputs and even function are all applicable to other species. Maybe we can indicate "in humans" where appropriate and, if we're up for it, compare and contrast how it differs from other species. Fortunately the cerebellum is one of the most conserved regions, so we won't need to do this too often. Nrets 16:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

• I agree... for example, many of the papers cited at the bottom of the article are about mice, rabbits, and monkeys. Since cerebella have some features in common from fish to human, it would be great to indicate when a feature is conserved or when it is species-specific. Cyberied 16:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Percent cerebellum by total brain volume

A new user added a comment saying that the granule cells compose approximately 70% of the total cells in the CNS. We wrote earlier that the cerebellum in its entirety constitutes approximately 50% of the cells in the brain. Obviously there is a contradiction here. We need someone to bring in citations. I'll try and dig up mine... Semiconscious 19:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

According to the granule cell article, they account for nearly half of the neurons in the central nervous system. --WS 19:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Well, yes. But I wrote that article, so it's a bit biased! Semiconscious 23:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• • I think you can find both estimates in the literature, although 70% seems high. It might also vary from species to species. Nrets 20:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• True, but if this person has a great new reference, then I'd be willing to accept that over the 50% comment any day (though 70% seems way too high to me, too). Semiconscious 23:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Problem is, is that it is an anonymous user who's only made that one edit, so we can't ask him! Nrets 02:29, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tensor Theory

Someone added a bunch of refs to something called a Tensor Network Theory of Cerebellar Function, but really did not take the trouble to explain how any of this is relevant or what it even is. My inclination was to delete the additions, but I decided to just make them fit into WP format, and give the editor a chance to perhaps amplify in simple terms the significance of these edits. Does anyone have any suggestions whether to remove them or keep them? Nrets 22:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

• Ridiculous number of references given for this one theory, and all by one author (Pellionisz). To be fair Pellionisz has written about others in the field and PubMed came up with 14 refences not all by him. Still, I agree, someone with specialist knowlegde needs proof read the theory section.
• The mix of in-text and referenced citation style was confusing, so I've ported them all over to cite:ref style (picking up a broken link in process) and added to the details on some of the citations given. Hopes this helps :-) David Ruben ^Talk 00:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

That looks better, thanks! Now, we still need to figure out what exactly this sentence means: " "Tensor Network Theory" provides a mathematical model of transformation of sensory (covariant) space-time coordinates into motor (contravariant) coordinates by cerebellar neuronal networks." Also, the modelling section that follows the theory section seems like it could be merged with it. Is anyone familiar enough with cerebellar models to sort this out? Nrets 02:21, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Tensor network theory essentially is a theory to explain how the cerebellum might act as a timing device. I can explain it crudely by analogy I guess; think of a graph that plots distance against time - a point on this graph represents a space-time co-ordinate. Now a straight line represents travel in time at a uniform speed - and different slopes correspond to travel at different speeds. Now imagine that the plane of the graph corresponds to an array of neurons in the cerebellum, and the line corresponds to active neurons in this array - the line will correspond to a movement and the speed of that movement. However, I don't really think that this needs inclusion, and the references and mention of it can be merged with the theory of cerebellum as a timing device. If anyone has the energy the theory might be worth a separate article, but I don'tGleng 10:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)