The contribution of cerebellar circuitry alterations in the pathophysiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been widely investigated in the last decades. Yet, experimental studies on neurocognitive markers of ASD have not been attentively compared with similar studies in patients with cerebellar primary disturbances (e.g., malformations, agenesis, degeneration, etc). Addressing this neglected issue could be useful to underline unexpected areas of overlap and/or underestimated differences between these sets of conditions. In fact, ASD and cerebellar primary disturbances (notably, Cerebellar Cognitive Affective Syndrome, CCAS) can share atypical manifestations in perceptual, sensory, and motor functions, but neural subcircuits involved in these anomalies/difficulties could be distinct. Here, we specifically deal with this issue focusing on four paradigmatic neurocognitive functions: visual and biological motion perception, multisensory integration, and high stages of the motor hierarchy. From a research perspective, this represents an essential challenge to more deeply understand neurocognitive markers of ASD and of cerebellar primary disturbances/CCAS. Although we cannot assume definitive conclusions, and beyond phenotypical similarities between ASD and CCAS, clinical and experimental evidence described in this work argues that ASD and CCAS are distinct phenomena. ASD and CCAS seem to be characterized by different pathophysiological mechanisms and mediated by distinct neural nodes. In parallel, from a clinical perspective, this characterization may furnish insights to tackle the distinction between autistic functioning/autistic phenotype (in ASD) and dysmetria of thought/autistic-like phenotype (in CCAS).

在过去的几十年中，小脑回路改变在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）病理生理中的贡献已得到广泛研究。然而，对于小脑原发性疾病（例如畸形，发育不全，变性等）的患者，关于ASD神经认知标记物的实验研究尚未与类似研究进行认真的比较。解决这一被忽视的问题可能有助于强调意想不到的重叠区域和/或这些条件之间的低估差异。实际上，自闭症和小脑原发性障碍（特别是小脑认知情感综合症，CCAS）在感觉，感觉和运动功能方面可以表现出非典型表现，但是涉及这些异常/困难的神经子回路可能是明显的。这里，我们专门针对此问题着重于四种范式的神经认知功能：视觉和生物运动感知，多感觉整合以及运动等级的高阶阶段。从研究的角度来看，这是更深入地了解ASD和小脑原发性疾病/ CCAS的神经认知标记的一项重大挑战。尽管我们不能得出明确的结论，而且ASD和CCAS之间在表型上没有相似之处，但这项工作中描述的临床和实验证据认为ASD和CCAS是不同的现象。ASD和CCAS似乎以不同的病理生理机制为特征，并由不同的神经节介导。同时，从临床角度来看，