Cortico-cerebellar dysfunctions underlying executive deficits in Friedreich’s ataxia

22nd Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. Poster Session Tuesday, June 28, 2016. Imis Dogan, Eugenie Tinnemann, Sandro Romanzetti, Shahram Mirzazade, Ana Costa, Cornelius Werner, Stefan Heim, Kathrin Fedosov, Stefanie Schulz, Dagmar Timman-Braun, Ilaria Giordano, Thomas Klockgether, Jörg Schulz, Kathrin Reetz.

Neuropsychological test data provides evidence of executive impairment in individuals with FRDA, in particular pertaining to phonemic verbal fluency and social cognition. During phonological processing, the observed pattern of increased cerebellar and cortical neural response accompanied by impaired cortico-cerebellar functional coupling indicates dysfunctions in cerebro-cerebellar pathways and functional reorganization, which may be driven by disease-related cerebellar damage.

 Cortico-cerebellar dysfunctions underlying executive deficits in Friedreich’s ataxia