What causes cerebellar degeneration?

What causes cerebellar degeneration?

There are a variety of conditions that can cause cerebellar degeneration, including:

• Alcoholism: Alcohol use disorder can lead to a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency. This disrupts your brain function and damages cells. People with alcoholism may not get enough thiamine in their diets. Or, their bodies may not be able to absorb thiamine.
• Neurodegenerative disorders: Some disorders cause nerve degeneration in your spinal cord and brain, including your cerebellum. These diseases include ataxia, multiple system atrophy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and multiple sclerosis (MS). Neurodegenerative disorders may be inherited (passed through abnormal genes from parents to children). Or, you may develop the disease during your lifetime.
• Paraneoplastic syndromes: Some people have an autoimmune disorder that causes their bodies to attack healthy brain cells in response to a tumor. Paraneoplastic syndromes are more common in people with certain cancers. These include breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, adult Hodgkin’s lymphoma and small cell lung cancer.