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Case Reports
. 2017 Sep 14:4:14.
doi: 10.1186/s40673-017-0074-6. eCollection 2017.

Hemicerebellitis can drive handedness shift

Mario Mascalchi  1 , Matteo Lenge  2 , Andrea Bianchi  1 , Emanuele Bartolini  2 , Gioele Gavazzi  1 , Flavio Giordano  3 , Renzo Guerrini  2
Affiliations
Case Reports

Hemicerebellitis can drive handedness shift

Mario Mascalchi et al. Cerebellum Ataxias. .

Abstract

Background: Hemicerebellitisis a rare acquired condition, typical of the pediatric age. A residual switched handedness may develop after remission of acute cerebellar symptoms.

Case presentation: Herein we describe a motor functional MRI studyperformed in a 35-year old girl who had switched to left-handedness after acute right hemicerebellitis in childhood. During left hand tapping, we observed activation in the right primary sensori-motor cortex, right supplementary motor area and left superior cerebellum. During right hand tapping bilateral activations of primary sensori-motorcortex and superior cerebellum including the vermis and activation of the right supplementary motor area were observed. We speculate that during right hand tapping both the ipsilateral and contralateralpre-central gyri and the ipsilateral cerebellum would be engaged in order to recover the tapping internal model of action. From this perspective the ipsilateral pre-central gyrus might serve as are transmission station of information from the healthy cerebellum to the contralateral pre-central gyrus.

Conclusion: Selective damage of the right half of the cerebellum due to hemicerebellitis in childhood can drive shift of lateralized hand functions in the cerebrum.

Keywords: Brain mapping; Cerebellum: Childhood; fMRI.

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Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

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The participant provided a signed consent to publish and report individual patient data.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Hand-writing of three simple words and drawing the Maze spiral demonstrate preferential left handedness
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Coronal FLAIR image (a) shows markedly decreased volume of the right cerebellar hemisphere with hyperintensity of the right cerebellar cortex. Axial and coronal T1 weighted images with superimposed activated clusters during left (b and d) and right-hand (c and e) tapping. During left hand tapping the right precentral/postcentral gyri, right superior frontal gyrus and the left superior cerebellum are activated, whereas during right hand tapping the precentral/postcentral gyri on both sides, the left superior frontal gyrus and the bilateral superior cerebellum including the vermis are activated
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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