This chapter presents an overview and practical approach to conceptualize manifestations of cerebellar lesions and outlines the principles that govern the cerebellar contribution to cognition and emotion as well as to sensorimotor function. Lesions of the cerebellum have been regarded as producing motor impairments. The cerebellar motor syndrome is characterized by wide-based and unsteady, or ataxic, gait; incoordination, or dysmetria, of the arms and legs; articulation impairment, or dysarthria; and eye movement abnormalities that disturb vision. The cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS) results from lesions of the posterior lobe, characterized by clinically relevant deficits in executive function, visual spatial performance, linguistic processing, and dysregulation of affect. The connections of the cerebellum with brain circuits are implicated in psychiatric illness. Applying repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the limbic cerebellum in the vermis improves psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia by upregulating cerebellar modulation of cerebrocerebellar circuits engaged in cognition and emotion.

This chapter focuses on methods to assess postural and locomotor performance in laboratory animals. It identifies the specific neuromotor deficits resulting from spinal cord injury (SCI) and those interventions that may be used to improve the level of recovery. An assessment of fine motor control of the forelimbs would be more appropriate to test following a corticospinal tract (CST) lesion. The basic locomotor pattern in mammals can be elicited from the brainstem and largely from the mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR). Rating scales have been used clinically for many years to assess motor performance in humans. One established electrophysiological test for sensory function is the stimulation of the tibial nerve in the popliteal fossa and recording somatosensory-evoked potentials (SSEPs) in the sensorimotor cortex via needle electrodes in the scalp. A wide variety of monosynaptic and polysynaptic reflexes have been used to test some aspects of neuromotor connectivity after SCI.