Blood Supply by the Superior Cerebellar Artery and Posterior Inferior Cerebellar Artery to the Motor and Nonmotor Domains of the Human Dentate Nucleus

Abstract

Background: The human cerebellum plays an important role in motor and nonmotor coordination. Any functional loss of the dentate nucleus can result in interruption of the cerebellar efferent pathway based on its somatotopy. However, understanding of the vascular supply to the dentate nucleus remains inadequate.

Methods: The origin of the perforators to the dentate nucleus was investigated by microscopic anatomic dissection of 14 human cerebellar hemispheres. The dentate nuclei were divided dorsoventrally, rostrocaudally, and mediolaterally to identify which cerebellar artery dominated which part of the dentate nucleus.

Results: The average number of perforators from the superior cerebellar artery (SCA) to the dentate nucleus was 2.2 ± 0.9. The average number of perforators from the posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) was 1.8 ± 0.7. The anterior inferior cerebellar artery did not provide perforators to the dentate nucleus. The dorsal, rostral, and lateral halves of the dentate nucleus were more frequently dominated by the SCA than by the PICA. The ventral and medial halves of the dentate nucleus were more frequently dominated by the PICA than by the SCA. The dorsal rostrolateral and the ventral caudomedial sections were mainly supplied by the SCA and PICA, respectively.

Conclusions: These findings in combination with findings of previous imaging studies suggest that the SCA is mainly associated with the motor activity and the PICA is mainly associated with the nonmotor activity of the dentate nucleus.

Keywords: Anatomy; Cognition; Deep nucleus; Diffusion image; fMRI.