Taxi Drivers Have Less Chances Of Developing Alzheimer's Disease

Becoming a taxi driver is no easy feat; it requires knowing practically every nook and corner of the city. Some neuroscientists in London saw an opportunity to study how the brain might change in response to the heavy demand for navigational and spatial memory. What they found is flabbergasting. They discovered that taxi drivers are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease compared to people in other professions.

Here's The Reason

The study, published in 2000, analyzed a group of 16 London cabbies who underwent MRI brain scans. The results showed that, compared to people with other jobs, these taxi drivers had changes in their hippocampus—the part of the brain responsible for memory and navigation. The more years people spend on the job, the larger their hippocampus became. Interestingly, it is the same part of the brain that is implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. To note, dementia is a cluster of neurodegenerative diseases that primarily affect the elderly, leading to memory loss and navigational difficulties, among other symptoms.

This study intrigued another group of scientists, who, in their study published in The BMJ, also examined drivers with fixed routes, such as bus drivers, ship captains, and aircraft pilots. "The results surprised us. We found that the two occupations with the lowest rate of Alzheimer’s death among all occupations studied were taxi drivers and ambulance drivers. Taken together, their risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease was 56% lower than the general population at any given age." Taxi and ambulance drivers did not have lower rates of death from other forms of dementia, for which the hippocampus may be less involved.

However, bus drivers, aircraft pilots, and ship captains—the jobs with less spontaneous decision-making—had Alzheimer’s death rates typical of the rest of the population. This suggests that routine navigation along highly frequented routes might not impact the brain in the same way. Current research suggests there may be some cognitive activities, like games and simulations, that could help slow cognitive decline in the elderly, and research is ongoing on brain ageing.

Meanwhile, neurologists across the world have advised that brain games and puzzles can slow down brain ageing. research shows that brain-training games may help improve attention levels, memory, response time, logic skills, and other measures of cognitive function if played over a long period. And the good news is that these brain games are affordable and easily accessible to all. you just need a pen and paper for sudoku and the same goes on for crosswords. You can try these few games:

• Sudoku
• Crosswords
• Elevate
• Peak
• Happy Neuron
• Braingle
• Queendom

ALSO READ: Collin Farrell Son Has Angelman Syndrome, Know All About This Rare Neurogenetic Disorder