The scaling of white matter to gray matter in cerebellum and neocortex

Abstract

It is known that the white matter of neocortex increases disproportionately with brain size. However, relatively few measurements have been made of white matter/gray matter scaling in the cerebellum. We present data on the volumes of white and gray matter in both structures, taken from 45 species of mammals. We find a scaling exponent of 1.13 for cerebellum and 1.28 for neocortex. The 95% confidence intervals for our estimates of these two exponents do not overlap. This difference likely reflects differences in the connectivity and/or micro-structure of white matter in the two regions.