Maguire

• Aims and procedure


  • To investigate whether extensive navigation experience in London taxi drivers is associated with structural changes in the hippocampus
  • MRI scans to compare the brains of 16 male London taxi drivers (average of 14.3 years of driving experience) to 50 male non-taxi drivers - pixel counting was used to measure hippocampal volume and grey matter density
• Findings


  • Taxi drivers had a significantly greater volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampi compared to the control group - suggests that spatial memory and navigation are associated with structural changes in the brain
  • Positive correlation between number of years spent driving and volume of posterior hippocampus, indicating hippocampus continues to adapt with prolonged navigation experience