Route-learning changes brain tissue

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/cmu-mmr102715.php

Public Release: 27-Oct-2015
Mental maps: Route-learning changes brain tissue
Findings establish critical link between structural and functional brain changes during learning
Carnegie Mellon University

Fifteen years ago, a study showed that the brains of London cab drivers had an enlargement in the hippocampus, a brain area associated with navigation. But questions remained: Did the experience of navigating London's complex system of streets change their brains, or did only the people with larger hippocampi succeed in becoming cab drivers?

Now, Carnegie Mellon University scientists have determined that learning detailed navigation information causes the hippocampal brain changes. Published in NeuroImage, Tim Keller and Marcel Just show that brief navigation training changes a person's brain tissue and improves how that changed tissue communicates with other brain areas involved with navigation.

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