New Brain Science Shows Taxi Drivers Have Bigger Brains.
Well, this fact a bit of a shock but it is great news for baby boomers. I guess you are wondering if I think you all want to be taxi-drivers but, no, that isn’t it. The really interesting thing about the brains of taxi drivers in a London study, was that the more they needed to learn about the streets and landmarks of London, the larger that area of their brain grew to accommodate all the new learning.
Taxi drivers develop new brain connections
Researcher Eleanor Maguire of the Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology described the study: We got the taxi drivers to imagine they were driving from point to point [on London streets] while their brains were being observed using MRI scans. We also asked them to recall other types of memory that didn’t involve any navigation, like describing famous landmarks like the Statue of Liberty or the Sydney Opera House.”
What transpired from the study was that the hippocampus wasn’t activated for just describing the landmarks but it was highly active when the drivers were imagining navigating a route that involved passing the landmarks. Connecting information and processing it into the memory happens in the hippocampus.
It is no surprise then to find that, compared with other drivers who do not have to know all the streets and landmarks of London (called “The Knowledge”), London taxi drivers have a measurably larger hippocampus.
Brain Scan Revealed Larger Hippocampus
Why is this good news for boomers? Well, it is a stunning example of the fact that the brain will grow if it is challenged to learn new information, particularly complex information. Setting out to learn the complete map of London might not be the challenge for you, but I’m sure there are others that your brain will thank you for. Maybe the map of New York? Just joking!
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This article was reproduced with permission of its author Gillian Eadie, founder of the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on how to remember, your brain, and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.
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