White Matter, Behavioral Neurology, and the Influence of Corticocentrism

Abstract

White matter in the human brain occupies roughly the same volume as gray matter but has received far less attention in behavioral neurology and related disciplines. In particular, the cerebral cortex has long dominated thinking about the organization of brain–behavior relationships. As a result, subcortical structures, including deep gray matter and, most notably, white matter, have been accorded relatively little neuroscientific study compared with the extensive work devoted to the cerebral cortex. The influence of corticocentrism can be explained by several factors, including historical precedent in neurology strongly emphasizing the importance of the cortex, a preponderance of investigative methods that selectively target this structure, and a misinterpretation of comparative neuroanatomic data gathered from normal brains. This paper will describe the background of the corticocentric bias and emphasize that white matter merits its own place within the study of the higher functions. Although corticocentrism continues to exert a powerful impact on behavioral neurology, considerable progress is being made in the study of white matter—a development that promises to expand our knowledge of the normal brain and lead to an improved understanding of how it mediates behavior. In turn, a range of vexing neurologic and psychiatric disorders may become better illuminated by considering pathology within, or dysfunction of, white matter tracts. A complete appreciation of brain–behavior relationships requires an understanding not only of the outermost layer of the cerebral hemispheres, but also of white matter connectivity that links gray matter regions into distributed neural networks that subserve cognition and emotion.