The human cerebellum has almost 80% of the surface area of the neocortex

Significance The cerebellum has long been recognized as a partner of the cerebral cortex, and both have expanded greatly in human evolution. The thin cerebellar cortex is even more tightly folded than the cerebral cortex. By scanning a human cerebellum specimen at ultra-high magnetic fields, we were able to computationally reconstruct its surface down to the level of the smallest folds, revealing that the cerebellar cortex has almost 80% of the surface area of the cerebral cortex. By performing the same procedure on a monkey brain, we found that the surface area of the human cerebellum has expanded even more than that of the human cerebral cortex, suggesting a role in characteristically human behaviors, such as toolmaking and language.