Disturbance Rejection in the Cerebellum

This paper further explores the hypothesis, put forward in our earlier work, that the cerebellum performs disturbance rejection to meet the requirements of the internal model principle of control theory. We review some of the relevant experimental results that suggest such an interpretation is possible. We also discuss in an informal non-mathematical way how a model of the cerebellum for disturbance rejection may be formulated using ideas from control theory. Based on our study of the slow eye movement systems as well as visuomotor adaptation, several themes emerge, including a possible structural model of the cerebellum, and insights on how the cerebellum may enable and disable internal models. Implications for robotics are discussed at the end of the paper.