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Research on the cerebellum yields rewards

A brain structure called the cerebellum has mostly been associated with learning from errors. The discovery that the cerebellum is also involved in reward-driven learning in monkeys implies a previously unappreciated role in cognition.
  1. Jennifer L. Raymond

    1. Jennifer L. Raymond is in the Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

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People and organizations alike use rewards, from snacks to salary bonuses and frequent-flyer miles, to shape behaviour through a process called reinforcement learning. For example, if a dog receives a treat for rolling over in response to a verbal command, the likelihood of that behavioural response to the verbal cue will increase. Writing in Neuron, Sendhilnathan and colleagues1 describe neuronal signals that could support such reward-driven learning. What is remarkable is where the authors found these signals — not in the brain areas that have long been implicated in reinforcement learning, but in the cerebellum, a brain structure historically associated with error-driven, rather than reward-driven, learning.

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Nature 579, 202-203 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00636-x

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