Many of you know how much I love talking about the cerebellum. This often overlooked part of the caudal fossa packs quite a punch in the day to day functions of the body. Therefore, I was excited to read an article from the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine (pub. Jan-Feb 2026) dedicated to reminding us of the link between the cerebellar anatomy and clinical signs. (Reference below). The authors evaluated the neurologic examination and MRI and outlined the neuroanatomic structures affected by disease, which resulted in specific clinical signs.
What are common signs of cerebellar dysfunction?
The cerebellum is a diverse little bugger. Common signs include vestibular signs (head tilt, nystagmus, vestibular ataxia), gait deficits (ataxia, paresis(!!)) and behavior changes (anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances).
Results
Only dogs with localized, delineable lesions were included in the portion of the study discussing neuroanatomy. (n=85)
The most common presenting clinical sign was ataxia (cerebellar, cerebello-vestibular or vestibular). This was identified in 92% of dogs.
Postural reaction deficits were found in 64% of dogs.
Rostral cerebellar lesions produced cerebellar ataxia and decerebellate rigidity, paresis and were less often associated with behavior changes.
Caudal cerebellar lesions produced fewer motor disturbances but more behavioral changes
Deep white matter lesions were associated with vestibular signs (nystagmus, vestibular ataxia, head tilt)
Vascular disease was the most common etiology identified (46%), followed by neoplasia (24%), inflammatory (17%), degenerative (10%) and congenital causes (4%).
Vascular disease
Lest you think vascular disease is only for the elderly, the median age was 110 months (about 9 years of age) with a range of 22-228 months.
Only about 25% of patients with vascular cerebellar lesions had hypertension, which is a good reminder that canine patients do not have hypertensive vascular disease as often as human or feline animals.
Brachycephalic breeds and dogs with comorbidities were over represented in the vascular etiology group
Onset time less than 2 days was significantly associated with vascular disease
Why are the postural reaction deficits present?
We do not expect dogs (or cats) with cerebellar lesions to have postural reaction deficits so why was this the second most common finding? The authors suppose that this finding is linked to disease of the cerebellar peduncle, which is the neural high way connecting the vestibular part of the cerebellum with the brainstem vestibular apparatus. Postural reaction pathways and upper motor neuron pathways course through the brainstem. It is also possible, from these results, that the cerebellum has more input to motor control that previously thought. However, I don’t think we can confirm this based solely on this study.
In conclusion, this article provided a nice reminder of the different cerebellar zones (rostral, caudal and white matter) and the different clinical signs that each can produce. Remember that the cerebellum is like your mother – it oversees a lot of moving parts and therefore when failure occurs many aspects of the animal’s neurologic function may be affected.
While largely academic, this TidBit Tuesday was a fun read, and I encourage you to visit the article to review the figures if you also find this topic interesting. I only dusted the top of what this article has to offer! Thanks for reading! I hope you have a good week and stay healthy.
References: https://doi.org/10.1093/jvimsj/aalaf077