#orientation — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

💧🌏 Greg Cocks @[email protected] · 2026-08-12 · 06:03 UTC

Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
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https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
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https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
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https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
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https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
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H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job

#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance

💧🌏 Greg Cocks @GregCocks · 2026-08-12 · 06:03 UTC

Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
--
https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
--
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
--
https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
--
H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job

#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance

Ralf Becker @[email protected] · 2026-08-07 · 06:20 UTC

»I Drove Slate’s $25,000 Electric Truck. It Could Be A Real Game-Changer« – Launching a new carmaker from scratch is one one of the most challenging endeavors possible. The graveyard of automotive startups is filling up with …