Maguire et al - navigational related structural changes in the hippocampi of taxi drivers

Created by: Ella M
Created on: 01-06-13 14:54

what was the aim?

to investigate the differences in the brain especially the hippocampus in London taxi drivers and to establish whether compared to controls there is any difference in the structure.

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what is the design?

quasi lab experiment

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what is the sample?

16 taxi drivers between the ages of 32 and 62, all had been taxi drivers for at least 1.5 years and all were right handed

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what was the control group?

50 brain scans from the MRI database. all were age matched, right handed and non-taxi drivers

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how were the brains scanned?

MRI

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what were the two ways that participant's scans were measured?

VBM and pixel counting

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what does VBM stand for?

voxel-based morphometry

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what is VBM?

a way to measure the density of grey matter in the brain

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what is pixel counting

a pixel is a dot of colour on a digital image, pixel counting is when you count all of the pixels in a certian area

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what were the results of the VBM?

it showed there was an increase of grey matter in the left and right prosterior hippocampi of taxi drivers

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what were the results of pixel counting?

there was no difference in the overall size of the hippocampi between the taxi drivers and the control, but the taxi drivers had a bigger posterior hippocampus than anterior hippocampus, whereas the control group's was largely equal

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what were the conclusions of the study?

the human brain has plasticity - it can adapt to it's environment. however, the taxi drivers could already have had a lager prosterior hippocampus and that is why they were able to pass the knowledge and become licenced

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what is the design?

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quasi lab experiment

Card 3

Front

what is the sample?

Back

Card 4

Front

what was the control group?

Back

Card 5

Front

how were the brains scanned?

Back

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Maguire et al - navigational related structural changes in the hippocampi of taxi drivers