Verified by Size Matters
Focuses on a study on the size of gray matters in the brains of
taxi drivers as compared with those inexperienced motorists.
By Peter Haugen published July 1, 2000 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016
NAVIGATION
If cabbies' uncanny recall of locations and routes seems
superhuman, it's for good reason: They have more gray matter devoted to
navigation than the average person.
Eleanor Maguire, Ph.D., a neurologist at University College London,
used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to compare the gray matter
density in the brains of 16 taxi drivers with that of 16 inexperienced
motorists. Surprisingly, the amount of time subjects spent navigating the
roads was correlated with the size of their hippocampus, a brain
structure devoted to memory, suggesting that the longer cabbies cruise
the streets, the larger that brain area grows. "There is a lot of
evidence that the hippocampus can increase in size in some species
depending on the spatial demands put upon them," says Maguire, "like
finding food and mates," or the fastest way to the airport.
Apart from explaining taxi drivers' feats of memory, the research
suggests that the human brain is susceptible to environmental
stimulation--good news, for example, for people hoping to recover from
brain injury.
