Maguire Flashcards
What is the aim of maguire’s study?
To investigate whether changes could be detected in the brains of London taxi drivers and to further investigate the functions of the hippocampus in spatial memory
What method is used in this study?
Quasi because researchers are comparing data of taxi drivers and non-taxi drivers
Who were the participants in this study?
16 handed male licences London taxi drivers (mean age 44) . Compared with 50 healthy right handed males who didn’t drive taxis.
All had been licensed for more than a year and a half. Time spent draining to be a taxi driver was 2 years.
How was data collected?
MRI which collects data about anatomy of the brain by exposing to a strong magnetic field and radio waves. Software converts info into 3D imaging and can be see
the amount of grey matter in the hippocampus.
VBM and pixel counting are used to see the density and dimensions of volume of an area.
Pixel counting was on taxi drivers 16.. And 16 age matched from non taxi drivers.
What were the results of this study?
There was increase grey matter in right posterior hippocampus in taxi drivers whereas control group had higher hippocampus volume in right anterior hippocampus than taxi drivers.
There was no significant difference in overall hippocampus body between taxi drivers and controls although taxi had more volume on the left side.
Length of time spent as a taxi driver correlated positively with volumes right posterior hippocampus.
What was the background of Maguire?
To demonstrate the plasticity of the brain- changers in organisation of the brain as a result of experience.
The hippocampus would change because of taxi drivers high dependency on navigation skills.
There are 2 hippocampi a right and a left. Hippocampus plays major roles in short term and spatial navigation.
However it is impossible to know whether brain anatomy is predetermined or whether brain is susceptible to plastic change in response to environmental stimulation. He set out to discover whether morphological changes are associated with extensive experience of special navigation.
