Current Biology的研究指出受訓並考過駕駛執照的倫敦小黃駕駛有著比較大的海馬的灰質 體積,但受訓沒考過駕照的就不會有這個現象. 也就是說, 受過訓練的小黃駕駛在大腦結構上會有改變, 單單這樣好像沒什麼稀奇, 但這會是一個後天訓練改變大腦結構的一個有力證明. 原文: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221101267X Summary: The last decade has seen a burgeoning of reports associating brain structure with specific skills and traits (e.g., [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] and [8] ]). Although these cross-sectional studies are informative, cause and effect are impossible to establish without longitudinal investigation of the same individuals before and after an intervention. Several longitudinal studies have been conducted (e.g., [ [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] and [18] ]); some involved children or young adults, potentially conflating brain development with learning, most were restricted to the motor domain, and all concerned relatively short timescales (weeks or months). Here, by contrast, we utilized a unique opportunity to study average-IQ adults operating in the real world as they learned, over four years, the complex layout of London's streets while training to become licensed taxi drivers. In those who qualified, acquisition of an internal spatial representation of London was associated with a selective increase in gray matter (GM) volume in their posterior hippocampi and concomitant changes to their memory profile. No structural brain changes were observed in trainees who failed to qualify or control participants. We conclude that specific, enduring, structural brain changes in adult humans can be induced by biologically relevant behaviors engaging higher cognitive functions such as spatial memory, with significance for the “nature versus nurture”debate. --

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