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Adult Brains Grow From Specialist Use
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Dec 17, 2006 03:21 PM
from the use-it-or-lose-it dept.
from the use-it-or-lose-it dept.
Xemu writes "Researchers at University College of London's Institute of Neurology have discovered that taxi drivers grow more brain cells in the area associated with memory. Dr Eleanor Maguire says, 'We believe the brain increased in gray matter volume because of the huge amount of data memorized.' She warns against the use of GPS and says it will possibly affect the brain changes seen in this study. This research is the first to show that the brains of adults can grow in response to specialist use." London cabbies, unlike their American counterparts, have to learn the layout of streets and the locations of thousands of places of interest in order to get a license.
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Like every other muscle (Score:4, Insightful)
My bulging typing fingers and keen google-foo are testament to that.
Re:Like every other muscle (Score:5, Funny)
My right arm and wrist are stronger than my left
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
squats (Score:2)
I prefer squats with my grey matter.
Cause or Effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
A huge problem with any of these correlation studies is determining, accurately, which way the cause->effect relationship runs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also while there are some cab drivers who should be doing something else, There are those whose only real talent is directions and locations.
Re:Cause or Effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
A good question, but RTFA:
Hopefully they'll actually follow the pre-training drivers through all the way through training so they don't compare future wash-outs with present successful cabbies rather than future successful cabbies with present successful cabbies. If so, it should go a long way toward answering your question.
The ultimate would be to compare the same population of cabbies vs. bus drivers (control group) through their entire careers. Obviously that'd be a long-term study, and it will become impossible when "the Knowledge" is obsoleted by GPS mapping software. (I say "when" rather than "if". It will happen sooner or later.)
Parent
Re:Cause or Effect? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Cause or Effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
I generalized from similar observations:
In general, it seems that when it's more convenient and about as effective to use a machine as to do something by hand, people will no longer take the effort to do it themselves. And memorization (of prices, phone numbers, street names, anything) is way harder for people than for computers.
If the software works well enough that cabbies can reliably enter an address and find the street, why should cabbies be made to remember all the street names? And if it works so well that it can reliably pick an optimal route (including traffic, construction, etc.) why should they even remember how to get anywhere?
In fact, I predict they'll start depending on it before it's reliable. The test will go away, and for better or for worse, there will be a lot more cabbies out there, and they won't be able to get around very well when the computer acts up, just like a lot of businesses now can barely sell anything when their cash registers act up. It will be a pain to get to certain streets because the database is wrong, and cabbies will unknowingly avoid certain more optimal turns/intersections because the software can't navigate through them.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cause or Effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was in a motorcycle accident in 2001 which caused serious short-term memory issues in my brain. I started driving a cab in february of 2006, and I have noticed an increase in my short term memory.
When I first started, I would have to ask my passengers to give me directions one turn at a time (and in my mind, I was repeating that single direction) in order to get to the destination. Now, I can generally get anywhere on address alone, or, at a minimum, remember the address all the way through the trip, despite having various conversations, remembering turn by turn directions, avoiding accidents, etc.
I'd say I agree with the studies, from personal experience.
Parent
Re:Like every other muscle (Score:5, Insightful)
My mother used to be fluent in French, being a translator. She hasn't used the language in 20 years. She has almost forgotten it completely as she can't make sentences so easily. (Though I am sure she can get back into it 100x faster than a newcomer).
It is almost like the brain is a muscle. After Terry Shiavo died, the autopsy found that her brain shrunk to the size of grapefruit.
I wonder if there is a correlation of speed of learning and speed of forgetting and the brains that "erase" (or shove aside) old info faster take in new information easier.
Parent
What about trivia nuts? (Score:4, Interesting)
What about people who memorize every little detail of Star Trek?
Or is it that only people with the additional brain mass CAN memorize all those items?
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Re:What about trivia nuts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Trust me, memorization has very little to do with intelligence and more to do with exposure and motivation to memorize a subject
I honestly don't think it should be a surprise that working with an area of your brain would increase its "strength." This is (effectively) what practice is
Take any person who has never learned a musical instrument before and examine the impact of musical stimulus on their brain. Spend 8 hours a day for the next year teaching them musical theory and composition as well as several instruments and then examine the impact of musical stimulus on their brain. Being that they've practiced and learned a lot about music, one would expect that their brain would suddenly become far more involved in the musical experience.
At the same time, one of the questions of a study like this would be what would the consequence of television be on a person's brain? For the most part television would be training the brain in a way which would not be particularly useful in any pursuit and yet many/most people have a ton of exposure to this influence.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
TV is mostly entertainment. So its really not that different than me driving my ass to the comedy clubs downtown. I'm "engaged" in the same way, yet we dont see so much PC hysteria about this or other forms of entertainment. Well, we do with videogames, but again its a double standard depending on who is com
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Spatial aspect is important (Score:3, Informative)
The original idea was that the hippocampus holds a map of spatial environments, and so if someone has a very large amount of spatial knowledge, maybe their hippocampal anatomy will reflect that. This hypothesis is supported
How do they know? (Score:2)
Did these scientists have a "control experiment" done? The very usage of the word "believe" scares me. That means that there could be another scientist who might *not* believe.
May be those brain cells grow because of the working environment these taxi drivers find themselves in. In this case, they see so much traffic in their particular work day - maybe.
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Re:How do they know? (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the real world of science, where conclusions are not solid, facts are not certain, and evidence is only an indication.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the study, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL's Institute of Neurology carried out scans on the brains of 35 cabbies and bus drivers, all men. Various psychological tests were also carried out. Using bus drivers meant that any brain differences found could not be explained by driving stress, or dealing with passengers and traffic in London. The one big difference between the two is that bus drivers stick to routes, while cabbies have to learn the layout of streets and the locations of thousands of places of interest to get an operating licence.
So clearly they had thought of that particular possibility. What concerns me though, is how they know that their brain matter has grown rather than just having large memory centers from the start. They should probably do the same experiment with cabbies preparing for their exam and take the measure before and after.
London cabbies... (Score:5, Informative)
london streets (Score:3, Informative)
London is also harder to get around, due to the way street names in London work.
Re:london streets (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a Londoner, and I think the sooner the GPS makes The Knowledge a prerequisite of licenced cab driving irrelevant, the better. The times I've been to NYC and got a cab it's been paradise in comparison.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So the problem is not that London regulates its black cabs. The problem is that it doesn't regulate the minicabs.
Old news for nerds? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The taxi drivers have a 20% reduction in anterior hippocampus. And
a 7-8% increase in posterior hippocampus.
Therefore the brain grows from experience!
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/8/4398/F2 [pnas.org]
Then they went on to show a correlation with time as a taxi driver,
but it was only significant if they removed one outlier, a process
that COULD NOT POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN important to their statistical
finding.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/8/4398 [pnas.org]
That part of the brain h
Unlike American cab drivers .... (Score:2)
I once had this cab driver who picked me up from Fairbanks International and didn't know the way to Ester.* He was actually angry at me for "wasting his time" and wanted me to call 911 for directions and eventually dropped me back off the airport and wanted $25 for his trouble. (!)
*Ester is a little village a few miles from Fairbanks on a major road that anyone of speaking age who's lived in town for more than a month can give you directions to. I know w
My brane is huge (Score:2, Funny)
In other news... (Score:2)
Does this mean... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's true (Score:3, Funny)
Plato/Socrates said that about writing too... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bet he would have hated Google. All we have to remember now is how to use it and a few key words.
London cabbies vs American cabbies (Score:4, Insightful)
No map required, took us directly to the street - no problems - good tip
American cab driver (picked me up from Dallas Fort Worth airport)
Said he "used to live there", had a map - was only 6 miles from the airport but he managed to get lost, take about an hour or two to get there (had this insistence he must drop me off at the correct number) and ended up charging less than what was on his meter out of embarrassment.
So, yes I'll take a London cab driver (or walking/public transport if I'm in America) vs their American equivalent any day of the week.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, as long as we're on anecdotes, when I was in Japan, I asked the cab driver to take me to a well-known club, even using what Japanese I knew, plus a Japanese accent with my English (which actually works better than trying to speak Japanese in many situations). Apparently the language barrier was too steep, so I just showed him the flier with the map all written in Japanese. Instead of
Sounds like a good reason *for* GPS (Score:3, Insightful)
Use a GPS. Save your brain for something better. (Score:5, Insightful)
American Scientist had an episode where they taught a seeing girl braille, and tested her ability while doing an fMRI. The sections of her brain that fired during the test were associated with tactile processing. Then they blindfolded her for 100 hours, and retested. This time, her visual cortex was firing. The brain is dynamic and can repurpose unused neurons. This may be why people can no longer remember 7-digit telephone numbers: We all have PDA/cell phones to do it for us.
Is this bad? Not unless you value the ability to remember phone numbers.
Would it be bad if London taxi drivers no longer knew every little alleyway? Not so long as they could still accomplish their task.
BTW, I had a very different experience with a cabby in Paris. I told him where I wanted to go and he handed me a road atlas and said, "Trouvez-le."
Writing Destroys Memory (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
Med-I-Cal, Inc. has filed a patent on a revolutionary new method of improving muslce tone. From an interview with company CEO Mr. Smith:
"After long and expensive testing, we have found that repeatedly lifting heavy objects for as little as 15 minutes each day causes muscle mass in adults to increase and the amount of body fat to decrease without any of the side effects our current line of hormonal products may, under extremely rare circumstances and with no liability to us, show. We are seeking to bring such objects with an easy to grip handle into the market within the next 10 years."
Mr. Smith also stated that the makers of many piratical weightlifting products currently flooding the market would face "heavy consequences" and proceeded to pick up and throw a car towards a 3rd-story window in a fit of hormone-induced rage. Luckily a passing taxi driver was able to stop the car in midflight and bring it down safely with his amazing psychokinetic powers, the result of strenuously exercising his brain for years beyond human limits.
Mr. Smith and the taxi driver then engaged in a superpowered fight that reduced most of downtown into smoking rubble. The fight ended in a draw when the smoke caused the combatants to lose sight of each other and wander off. The taxi drivers union settled out of court to use their mind powers to restore the city, heal the injured and raise the dead, a task that took them approximately 15 minutes. Mr. Smith, being the head of a large corporation, was not accused despite having started the fight.
Juggers too - BBC again (Score:3, Interesting)
It's interesting, but it ain't news
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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No doubt British Taxis are better than French & Egyptian taxis as well but since most people who read this are American it makes more sense to point out how much better they are than Americans rather than some other random country.
It's not jingoism when it's true... (Score:4, Interesting)
Compare this to my experiences in the USA:
- Wanting to get back to my hotel in Sausalito from San Francisco. I'm standing on Lombard (which turns into the Golden gate bridge, the best way to go) and hail a cab. He turns (right) onto a side-street, turns left, turns left, crosses Lombard again, turns right, turns right, crosses Lombard again, etc. He's being told how to get to Sausalito by his controller (I can *hear* his controller saying "turn onto Lombard" at which point he says "I've just crossed Lombard"). This goes on until I lean over and tell him I can direct him.
- Getting off a plane at Newark, having the rest of the day free before a plane home to the UK the next day. Ask cabbie to take me to the Empire State building - hell why not. He doesn't know where it is. I direct him to roughly the right area, and he says "this is as close as I can get". WTF ? Walking about 8 blocks (diagonally) I get to the ESB...
I could go on. In my experience, cabbies in London are top-notch. The only place I've found that has vaguely-similar cabbies is Las Vegas, and I've travelled a fair amount in the US.
Simon.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Mini cab drivers do not have to take the Knowledge but if you ask them they are mostly studying to pass it, this can take up to 2 or 3 years of study even whilst operating as a mini cab in that time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For example the road I live on has a name which is repeated a number of times in the City I live in in different areas but with Black Cabs I only have to say "[my road name] by the park just under the bridge" to get there with no further questions asked whereas with the mini cabs it can t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well then, from a military perspective, the terrorists who brought down the Twins were also very successful and did a reasonably casualty-free job.
If you're saying that it has been anything except for successful
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So how does this explain George Bush ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes vice-presidents are chosen for their intelligence, which I believe is a ploy to keep them from competing for the top spot.
*("I think you're guilty of putting Descartes before TerHorst")
Parent
Where the streets have TOO MANY names. (Score:5, Insightful)
By contrast, Washington, DC was carefully planned, with a Cartesian quadrant system of N/S and E/W 'Streets' numbered from the Capitol building, as well as 'Avenues' that run at odd angles to that grid. The Public Land Survey System, which was used for the territories gained/defined after the US became independent of Britain, imposes a compass grid that largely governs newer areas, such as Florida and Western states.
It is often said that St. Louis (built long before the survey system) is the westernmost 'eastern' city, and Kansas City the easternmost 'western' city. A comparison of the two shows that the former indeed has virtually no streets that align with the compass, while the latter has most major roads aligned with the survey grids, right down to the streets across the state line not being quite exactly aligned (due to accumulated errors over the distances from the 5th and 6th Principal Meridians, from which the surveys were conducted).The reason why London cabbies have to learn so many different street names is because there's so damned many of them, and no particular scheme to tie them together.
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