Cerebellum and Decision-Making

In everyday life, our behavior is guided continuously by decisions we make based on a combination of past experiences as well as information currently available to us. Decision-making is a complex executive function that involves many subprocesses, including detection and integration of cues, evidence accumulation, preparation and execution of the decision, retaining information from current and past events in working memory, and reward processing to update the internal model. The decision-making process requires involvement from many brain areas, including the cerebellum. Here, we argue that the cerebellum is involved in every step of the decision-making process. This makes the complex process of decision-making a fitting example to highlight the variety of motor and nonmotor aspects, including higher cognitive functions, in which a balanced output of the cerebellum can guide forebrain areas.