Dissociation between coverts shifts of attention and saccadic eye movements demonstrate functional segregation of the cerebellar hemispheres

Introduction: To investigate the role of the cerebellum in the execution or preparation of motor or cognitive tasks, we examined the cerebellum while preparing and performing an attentional in comparison to a motor task. The activation patterns during the preparation and execution of saccadic eye movements towards horizontally presented targets were compared to covert shifts of attention without overt eye movements with fMRI. Methods: 16 volunteers (3-T, Siemens Trio) performed a task examining visually guided saccades and covert shifts of attention that involved the presentation of a cue information regarding e…