What makes grey matter grey and white matter white at the level of cells? · Grey Matter

Grey matter is where neurons do their local work: it holds the cell bodies, dendrites, synapses and short local axons, together with astrocytes, microglia and a dense web of capillaries, and it looks pinkish grey in living tissue.

What makes grey matter grey and white matter white at the level of cells?

Grey matter is where neurons do their local work: it holds the cell bodies, dendrites, synapses and short local axons, together with astrocytes, microglia and a dense web of capillaries, and it looks pinkish grey in living tissue. White matter is made of bundles of long axons that connect distant regions, most of them wrapped in myelin by oligodendrocytes, and the high lipid content of the myelin makes it look white. In the cerebrum the grey matter forms the outer cortex and the deep nuclei, with the white matter between them; in the spinal cord the arrangement is reversed, with grey matter in a butterfly-shaped core. The division is functional as much as visual: grey matter computes, white matter carries.