The role of the left and right cerebellar hemisphere in emotional processing: a pilot study employing Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in healthy participants

Previous studies have always pointed out that the cerebellum has the function of controlling motor behavior. However, in recent years, new research has revealed that the cerebellum plays an important role in higher order functions. The disclosure of its function in the processing of emotions began with the discovery of the cognitive affective cerebellar syndrome, which reports behavioral changes and deficits in other cognitive areas. Recent findings and literature point to the cerebellum as being of great importance in emotion regulation, and the cerebellum is now recognized as an integral part of the limbic network that supports affective processing and has great importance to the ‘social brain’. It has been recently demonstrated that TMS over the left posterior cerebellar hemisphere also affects discrimination of emotional facial and body expressions, converging in pointing to the causal role of this posterolateral region in inferring others’ mental states from observation of their body language. The aim of the study presented in the present thesis is to confirm the role of the cerebellum in emotional processing - in particular in processing others' emotional body posture, test whether in the cerebellum there are lateralization effects and whether these effects are similar to those found in the brain. Findings confirmed the role of the cerebellum in emotional processing and, more specifically, in the processing of other people's emotional body posture. However, the present study indicated that the cerebellum does not show lateralization effects related to the processing of emotions. This evidence is disused in light of the current literature by further underlying possible limitation of the study and offering possible future perspective.