London Cabbies’ Unique Brains May Help Alzheimer’s Diagnosis

Jonathan Crowe — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 17:45:02 +0000

The Taxi Brains Project explores whether London taxi drivers’ legendary ability to navigate could help diagnose dementia. London cabbies, who since 1865 start by spending three or four years memorizing the London road network in order to learn the Knowledge, have been found to have an enlarged hippocampus, the part of the brain involved in spatial memory. Meanwhile, the hippocampus shrinks in Alzhemier’s patients. Studying the cabbies’ enlarged hippocampi may offer insights that could improve early detection. The study is seeking drivers to take tests and get an MRI scan. See the Washington Post’s story for details. [WMS]

the Knowledge – The Map Room

London Cabbies’ Unique Brains May Help Alzheimer’s Diagnosis