LUCIANIS WORK ON THE CEREBELLUM A CENTURY LATER

In 1891, Luigi Luciani published his famous monograph on the cerebellu m and formulated his triad of the cerebellar symptoms: atonia, astheni a and astasia, which explained all troubles provoked by cerebellar les ions; later he added a fourth sign, dysmetria, In spite of the fact th at it was advanced in a pre-electrophysiological period, Luciani's int erpretation of the cerebellar role in many motor functions survives mo re than a century later and his terminology has entered the routine of the neurological examination. With the modern knowledge of cerebellar circuitries, we can state that Luciani rightly pointed out the role o f the cerebellum in regulating postural tone and muscular force, and t hat conversely he was wrong in denying cerebellar influence in co-ordi nation of multi-joint movements and the somatotopic localizations in t he cerebellar cortex and nuclei. In spite of this, Luciani's work repr esents a milestone In cerebellar physiology.