Cabbies' Brains Grow to Store Detailed Maps London cabbies are renowned for their encyclopedic knowledge of the city's streets. Applicants have to pass a test to become a taxi driver. It may very well be London's cab drivers. The brains of London taxi drivers grow and adapt to help them store a detailed mental map of the vast city, according to research published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science . Mental Map Grows London cabbies are renowned for their encyclopedic knowledge of the city's streets.
Applicants have to pass a test to become a taxi driver.
Each year, about 3,500 people apply for licences to drive the famed black cabs, but only a fifth are successful. They spend an average of two years learning the layout of the city's roads before taking the test. In the study, researchers at University College, London University compared the brains of 16 male taxi drivers with those of 50 other men of a similar age. They found that among the cabbies, the back of the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with spatial memory, was larger than it was in the comparison group. Although the overall size of the brain was normal, it seemed each driver's hippocampus adapted to help store the detailed mental map of the city, the scientists said.