Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's

A 2024 study discovered that taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely to die of Alzheimer's disease compared to workers in nearly all other occupations. This finding was surprising because both of these jobs require navigation and continuous real-time spatial reasoning. The researchers examined death certificates from nearly 9 million people in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, and found that roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died from Alzheimer's disease, compared to 1 in 60 people overall.

The study suggests that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer's may not be driving itself, but rather the constant mental work of navigating and updating mental maps. The hippocampus, a brain region responsible for memory and spatial navigation, is particularly affected by Alzheimer's disease. Neuroscientists have found that London taxi drivers, who undergo extensive training to memorize thousands of streets, have more gray matter in the posterior hippocampus, a brain area associated with storing large-scale spatial maps.

The more experience a London taxi driver has, the larger this part of the brain becomes. The study also highlights the importance of spatial complexity in the environment. Research has shown that people living in spatially complex surroundings, such as areas with dense street networks and diverse points of interest, are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease.

While these studies focus on where people live rather than their work, the findings suggest that sustained spatial reasoning through any means can help protect the brain from this devastating disease.