#32: Building Our Brains

To become a black cab driver in London, you need to learn ‘The Knowledge’. This involves memorising everything within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, including 24,000 streets and 50,000 places of interest! 

You must then complete a most demanding test, where you mentally navigate between various points in the city. This all takes 3-4 years to learn, with no doubt many restless nights, waking in a pool of hot sweat, hopelessly lost somewhere near Brixton.

This test of memory caught the attention of a team of neuroscientists led by Eleanor Maguire. Amazingly, after studying the cabbies, they found that a part of the brain named the posterior hippocampus which is linked to long term memory and spatial navigation, was much larger than the normal population. Source

A follow up longitudinal study in 2011 by Woollett and Maguire, showed that trainees started with normal sized hippocampi, that then grew larger with each extra year’s training. Interestingly, as taxi drivers retired, these little seahorse shaped areas of the brain reduced year by year to their previous size.

The findings from these seminal studies are fascinating and show that mental training can radically alter our brains even as adults. Our brains truly are malleable; consistently evolving, rewiring and repurposing as our needs change. 

Just as with our bodies, we can train our brain to grow and become more efficient. The brain in fact, is far more versatile and adaptable than our bodies as each of our 86 billion or so neurons, form flexible connections with several thousand others.

This team of neuroscientists are currently scanning the taxi drivers’ brains to help with Alzheimer’s research, as the hippocampus is one of the first area’s damaged by the terrible disease leading to memory loss and confusion. Cab drivers may yet hold further secrets for our knowledge of the brain.

WISDOM 💎

“If you challenge yourself, if you are constantly facing new tasks and challenges that you haven’t mastered, you are building new roadways and bridges.”

David Eagleman

Tip 1 - A SMART PLAY ✅

Being a life-long learner.

This continues to pay dividends at any age. It’s easy to get comfortable and stay in our lane as adults, but more people are realising how fun and empowering it is to continue to challenge and push the boundaries of their knowledge and skills throughout life.

Tip 2 - AVOID 🚩

Relying solely on technology.

If you allow technology to do everything for you, it’s the equivalent of always taking the elevator. With our brain, just as with our bodies, if we don’t use them, we lose them. It’s smart to take the physical and mental stairs regularly.

Tip 3 - ACTION 💪

What way can you use your brain a bit more? 

Perhaps personal development, reading, writing, music or language learning. Maybe getting creative, playing puzzles or attending trivia. Or, if you aren’t in a rush turn off the GPS and figure out the route in your mind.