Department of Neurology, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany; Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
Anna Evelina Brol
Department of Neurology, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany
Marcel Gratz
Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; High-Field and Hybrid MR Imaging, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany
Christoph Ritter
Department of Neurology, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany
Ulrike Bingel
Department of Neurology, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany
Marc Schlamann
Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany; Department of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Stefan Maderwald
Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
Harald H Quick
Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; High-Field and Hybrid MR Imaging, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany
Christian Josef Merz
Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Dagmar Timmann
Department of Neurology, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany; Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
Prediction errors are thought to drive associative fear learning. Surprisingly little is known about the possible contribution of the cerebellum. To address this question, healthy participants underwent a differential fear conditioning paradigm during 7T magnetic resonance imaging. An event-related design allowed us to separate cerebellar fMRI signals related to the visual conditioned stimulus (CS) from signals related to the subsequent unconditioned stimulus (US; an aversive electric shock). We found significant activation of cerebellar lobules Crus I and VI bilaterally related to the CS+ compared to the CS-. Most importantly, significant activation of lobules Crus I and VI was also present during the unexpected omission of the US in unreinforced CS+ acquisition trials. This activation disappeared during extinction when US omission became expected. These findings provide evidence that the cerebellum has to be added to the neural network processing predictions and prediction errors in the emotional domain.
