Big Picture

Fast fact #2

#2: The hippocampus - a brain region involved in spatial navigation - is bigger than normal in London taxi drivers, who must pass 'The Knowledge', a test based on the city's layout.

Bibliography

Source: Maguire et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2000;97(8);4398-403.
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/4398.short
Originally published in The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Education-resources/Teaching-and-education/Big-Picture/All-issues/Special-Fast-Facts-book/index.htm

View all Fast Fact topics

The sources and links for each Fast Fact were verified at the time of initial publication. Where possible, the references are open access, although there may be occasions where only an abstract is available for free or without registering for an account with an external publication.

If you find a broken source link, please let us know by emailing bigpicture@wellcome.ac.uk , citing the Fast Fact number. Where possible, we'll find an alternative source or remove it from our site.