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The Cerebellum Is Involved in Reward-based Reversal Learning

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Abstract

The cerebellum has recently been discussed in terms of a possible involvement in reward-based associative learning. To clarify the cerebellar contribution, eight patients with focal vascular lesions of the cerebellum and a group of 24 healthy subjects matched for age and IQ were compared on a range of different probabilistic outcome-based associative learning tasks, assessing acquisition, reversal, cognitive transfer, and generalization as well as the effect of reward magnitude. Cerebellar patients showed intact acquisition of stimulus contingencies, while reward-based reversal learning was significantly impaired. In addition, the patients showed slower acquisition of new stimulus contingencies in a second reward-based learning task, which might reflect reduced carry-over effects. Reward magnitude affected learning only during initial acquisition, with better learning on trials with high rewards in patients and control subjects. Overall, the findings suggest that the cerebellum is implicated in reversal learning as a dissociable component of reward-based learning.

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Acknowledgment

We gratefully acknowledge support by the German Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF, Grant Nr. 01 GW0541).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Neuropsychology, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr-University of Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Patrizia Thoma, Christian Bellebaum & Irene Daum

  2. Department of Neurology, Klinikum Dortmund, 44137, Dortmund, Germany

    Benno Koch & Michael Schwarz

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  1. Patrizia Thoma
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  2. Christian Bellebaum
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  3. Benno Koch
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  4. Michael Schwarz
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  5. Irene Daum
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Correspondence to Patrizia Thoma.

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Thoma, P., Bellebaum, C., Koch, B. et al. The Cerebellum Is Involved in Reward-based Reversal Learning. Cerebellum 7, 433–443 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-008-0046-8

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