A new study published in The BMJ found that taxi drivers die from Alzheimer’s disease at lower rates than people in other professions. Researchers believe that the constant navigation required of this job may be strengthening the parts of the brain responsible for learning, memory, and navigation.
Over 20 years ago, a landmark paper showed that London cabbies have a bigger hippocampus, a small region of the brain crucial for learning and navigating. To become a London cab driver, drivers must memorize thousands of streets in the city through an intensive test called “The Knowledge.” The study used recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compare taxi drivers’ mortality rates to those in other occupations.
According to the research, 1% of taxi drivers died from Alzheimer’s disease compared to 3.9% of people in the overall dataset who died at a similar age. While the reasons behind this association are still unclear, researchers believe that constant navigation may be exercising the brain in ways that could help prevent Alzheimer’s.
The study has sparked interest among neuroscientists, who hope to understand how to mimic the stimulation of the brain that may protect against Alzheimer’s. “Prevention is a really important thing when it comes to Alzheimer’s,” said Vishal Patel, a surgical resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Source: https://www.statnews.com/2024/12/16/alzheimers-disease-research-taxi-drivers-hippocampus-dementia-link