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Where did the motor function of the cerebellum come from?

Overview of attention for article published in Cerebellum & Ataxias, August 2015
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  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#26 of 103)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (66th percentile)

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Title
Where did the motor function of the cerebellum come from?
Published in
Cerebellum & Ataxias, August 2015
DOI 10.1186/s40673-015-0029-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Marinella Coco, Vincenzo Perciavalle

Abstract

Until the end of 18th century, the role of the cerebellum remained obscure. The turning point occurred when Luigi Galvani showed that muscle contraction is due to electricity and Alessandro Volta produced the battery, an apparatus based on the pairing of silver and zinc plates separated by brine soaked paper disks, capable to generate electricity. Luigi Rolando, at beginning of 19th century, was impressed by these two observations. He thought that, since the brain generates the movement, it must contain a device generating electricity. As a battery, it should be formed by overlapping disks and the cerebellum for Rolando seemed to be the right structure for such a characteristic laminar organization. He argued that, if the cerebellum is the battery that produces electricity for muscle activity, its removal would produce paralysis. Consequently, Rolando removed the cerebellum in a young goat and observed that the animal, before dying, could no longer stand up. He concluded that the cerebellum is a motor structure as it generates the electricity which produces the movement. The conclusions of Rolando were criticized by Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens who observed that animals undergoing cerebellectomy were still able to move, even if with problems of balance. Flourens concluded that the role of the cerebellum "is to put in order or to coordinate movements wanted by certain parts of the nervous system, excited by others". It was necessary to wait up to 1891 when Luigi Luciani, observing a dog survived the cerebellectomy, described a triad of symptoms (asthenia, atony and astasis), unquestionably of cerebellar origin.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 36 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
India 1 3%
Unknown 35 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 22%
Student > Master 5 14%
Student > Bachelor 5 14%
Researcher 4 11%
Other 2 6%
Other 7 19%
Unknown 5 14%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Neuroscience 11 31%
Sports and Recreations 5 14%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 14%
Psychology 4 11%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 2 6%
Other 3 8%
Unknown 6 17%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 October 2015.
All research outputs
#7,409,926
of 22,826,360 outputs
Outputs from Cerebellum & Ataxias
#26
of 103 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#88,544
of 264,380 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cerebellum & Ataxias
#2
of 4 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,826,360 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 103 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 3.1. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 73% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 264,380 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 2 of them.