Understanding behavior in aging has benefited greatly from cognitive neuroscience. Our foundational understanding of the brain in advanced age is based on what now amounts to several decades of work demonstrating differences in brain structure, network organization, and function. Earlier work in this field was focused primarily on the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. More recent evidence has expanded our understanding of the aging brain to also implicate the cerebellum. Recent frameworks have suggested that the cerebellum may act as scaffolding for cortical function, and there is an emerging literature implicating the structure in Alzheimer’s disease. At this juncture, there is evidence highlighting the potential importance of the cerebellum in advanced age, though the field of study is relatively nascent. Here, we provide an overview of key findings in the literature as it stands now and highlight several key future directions for study with respect to the cerebellum in aging.

了解衰老行为极大地受益于认知神经科学。我们对老年大脑的基本了解是基于数十年的工作，证明了大脑结构、网络组织和功能的差异。该领域的早期工作主要集中在前额皮质和海马体。最近的证据扩大了我们对大脑衰老的理解，也暗示了小脑。最近的框架表明，小脑可能充当皮质功能的支架，并且有一篇新兴文献暗示了阿尔茨海默病中的结构。目前，有证据强调小脑在老年时的潜在重要性，尽管该领域的研究相对较新。在这里，我们概述了现有文献中的主要发现，并强调了有关小脑衰老的几个关键的未来研究方向。