Cerebellum size while the cerebrum decreased in size With both the development and implementation of motor tasks, visual-spatial skills and learning taking place in the cerebellum, the growth of the cerebellum is thought to have some form of correlation to greater human cognitive abilities. The lateral hemispheres of the cerebellum are now 2.7 times greater in both humans and apes than they are in monkeys. These changes in the cerebellum size cannot be explained by greater muscle mass. They show that either the development of the cerebellum is tightly linked to that of the rest of the brain or that neural
Anatomy of the cerebellum Anatomy of the cerebellum The anatomy of the cerebellum can be viewed at three levels. At the level of gross anatomy, the cerebellum consists of a tightly folded and crumpled layer of cortex, with white matter underneath, several deep nuclei embedded in the white matter, and a fluid-filled ventricle in the middle. At the intermediate level, the cerebellum and its auxiliary structures can be broken down into several hundred or thousand independently functioning modules or "microzones". At the microscopic level, each module consists of the same small set of neuronal elements, laid out with a highly stereotyped geometry. The cerebellum