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for places and navigation) as well as episodic memory. This makes sense, given that it is responsible for processing memory for complex combinations of perceptions, which is necessary for navigating your environment. Studies by Professor Eleanor Maguire and her colleagues showed that London taxi drivers with the “Knowledge” (the required intricate awareness of London’s incredibly vast and complicated road network) had an enlarged posterior hippocampus—the navigation part—when compared to non-taxi drivers. 10 These studies were conducted mostly in the days before satnavs and GPS though, so there’s no telling how they’d pan out now.
    There is even some evidence (although much of it from studies using mice, and how smart can they be?) to suggest that learning new skills and abilities does lead to the white matter involved being enhanced, by increasing the properties of the myelin (the dedicated coating provided by support cells that regulates signal transmission speed and efficiency) around the nerves. So, technically, there are ways to boost your brain power.
    That’s the good news. Here’s the bad.
    All of the things mentioned above take much time and effort, and even then the gains can be fairly limited. The brain is complex and responsible for a ridiculous number of functions. As a result, it’s easy to increase ability in one region without affecting others. Musicians may have exemplary knowledge of how to read music, listen to cues, dissect sounds and so on, but this doesn’t mean they’ll be equallygood at math or languages. Enhancing levels of general, fluid intelligence is difficult; it being produced by a range of brain regions and links means it’s an especially difficult thing to “increase” with restricted tasks or methods.
    While the brain remains relatively plastic throughout life, much of its arrangement and structure is effectively “set.” The long white-matter tracts and pathways will have been laid down earlier in life, when development was still under way. By the time we hit our mid-twenties, our brains are essentially fully developed, and it’s fine-tuning from thereon in. This is the current consensus anyway. As such, the general view is that fluid intelligence is “fixed” in adults, and depends largely on genetic and developmental factors during our upbringing (including our parents’ attitudes, our social background and education).
    This is a pessimistic conclusion for most people, especially those who want a quick fix, an easy answer, a short-cut to enhanced mental abilities. The science of the brain doesn’t allow for such things. Sadly but inevitably, there are many people out there who offer them anyway.
    Countless companies now sell “brain-training” games and exercises, which claim to be able to boost intelligence. These are invariably puzzles and challenges of varying difficulty, and it’s true that if you play them often enough you will get increasingly better at them. But only them. There is, at present, no accepted evidence that any of these products cause an increase in general intelligence; they just cause you to become good at a specific game, and the brain is easily complex enough not to have to enhance everything else to allow this to happen.
    Some people, particularly students, have started taking pharmaceuticals such as Ritalin and Adderall, intended totreat conditions like ADHD, when studying for exams, in order to boost concentration and focus. While they might achieve this briefly and in very limited ways, the long-term consequences of taking powerful brain-altering drugs when you don’t have the underlying issue they’re meant to treat are potentially very worrying. Plus, they can backfire: unnaturally ramping up your focus and concentration with drugs can prove exhausting and depleting to your reserves, meaning you burn out much faster and (for example) sleep through