Health
Eleanor Maguire, Memory Expert Who Studied London Cabbies, Dies at 54
Eleanor Maguire, a cognitive neuroscientist whose research on the human hippocampus — especially those belonging to London taxi drivers — transformed the understanding of memory, revealing that a key structure in the brain can be strengthened like a muscle, died on Jan. 4 in London. She was 54.
Her death, at a hospice facility, was confirmed by Cathy Price, her colleague at the U.C.L. Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Dr. Maguire was diagnosed with spinal cancer in 2022 and had recently developed pneumonia.
Working for 30 years in a small, tight-knit lab, Dr. Maguire obsessed over the hippocampus — a seahorse-shaped engine of memory deep in the brain — like a meticulous, relentless detective trying to solve a cold case.
An early pioneer of using functional magnetic resonance imaging (f.M.R.I.) on living subjects, Dr. Maguire was able to look inside human brains as they processed information. Her studies revealed that the hippocampus can grow, and that memory is not a replay of the past but rather an active reconstructive process that shapes how people imagine the future.
“She was absolutely one of the leading researchers of her generation in the world on memory,” Chris Frith, an emeritus professor of neuropsychology at University College London, said in an interview. “She changed our understanding of memory, and I think she also gave us important new ways of studying it.”
In 1995, while she was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Frith’s lab, she was watching television one evening when she stumbled on “The Knowledge,” a quirky film about prospective London taxi drivers memorizing the city’s 25,000 streets to prepare for a three-year-long series of licensing tests.
Dr. Maguire, who said she rarely drove because she feared never arriving at her destination, was mesmerized. “I am absolutely appalling at finding my way around,” she once told The Daily Telegraph. “I wondered, ‘How are some people so bloody good and I am so terrible?’”
In the first of a series of studies, Dr. Maguire and her colleagues scanned the brains of taxi drivers while quizzing them about the shortest routes between various destinations in London.
The results, published in 1997, showed that blood flow in the right hippocampus increased sharply as the drivers described their routes — meaning that specific area of the brain played a key role in spatial navigation.
But that didn’t solve the mystery of why the taxi drivers were so good at their jobs.
Dr. Maguire kept digging. Using M.R.I. machines, she measured different regions in the brains of 16 drivers, comparing their dimensions with those in the brains of people who weren’t taxi drivers.
“The posterior hippocampi of taxi drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control subjects,” she wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And the size, she found, correlated with the length of a cabby’s career: The longer the cabby had driven, the bigger the hippocampus.
Dr. Maguire’s study, published in March 2000, generated headlines around the world and turned London taxi drivers into unlikely scientific stars.
“I never noticed part of my brain growing,” David Cohen, a member of the London Cab Drivers Club, told the BBC. “It makes you wonder what happened to the rest of it.”
Dr. Maguire wondered, too: Why (and how) did their hippocampi grow?
She followed up with other studies. One showed that the hippocampi of bus drivers — whose routes were set rather than navigated from memory — didn’t grow. Another showed that prospective taxi drivers who failed their tests did not gain any hippocampus volume in the process.
The implications were striking: The key structure in the brain governing memory and spatial navigation was malleable.
In a roundabout way, Dr. Maguire’s findings revealed the scientific underpinnings of the ancient Roman “method of loci,” a memorization trick also known as the “memory palace.”
This technique involves visualizing a large house and assigning an individual memory to a particular room. Mentally walking through the house fires up the hippocampus, eliciting the memorized information. Dr. Maguire studied memory athletes — people who train their brains to memorize vast amounts of information quickly — who used this method, and observed that its effectiveness was “reflected in its continued use over two and a half millennia in virtually unchanged form.”
But recalling information was only half the story.
In studying patients with damage to the hippocampus, including those with amnesia, Dr. Maguire found that they couldn’t visualize or navigate future scenarios. One taxi driver, for instance, struggled to make his way through busy London streets in a virtual-reality simulation. Other amnesiacs couldn’t imagine an upcoming Christmas party or a trip to the beach.
“Instead of visualizing a single scene in their mind, such as a crowded beach filled with sunbathers, the patients reported seeing just a collection of disjointed images, such as sand, water, people and beach towels,” the journal Science News reported in 2009.
The hippocampus, it turns out, binds snippets of information to construct scenes from the past — and the future.
“The whole point of the brain is future planning,” Dr. Maguire was quoted as saying in Margaret Heffernan’s book “Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future” (2020). “You need to survive and think about what happened when I was last here, is there a scary monster that will come out and eat me? We create models of the future by recruiting our memories of the past.”
Eleanor Anne Maguire was born on March 27, 1970, in Dublin. Her father, Paddy Maguire, was a factory worker. Her mother, Anne Maguire, was a receptionist.
Growing up, Eleanor was obsessed with “Star Trek.”
“My first scientific hero was fictional — Spock, science officer on the Starship Enterprise,” she told the journal Current Biology in 2012. “He embodied so much of what attracted me to science. He was inquisitive, logical, honest, meticulous, calm, fearless in facing the unknown, innovative and unafraid of taking risks.”
She graduated from University College Dublin in 1990 with a degree in psychology, and returned to earn her doctorate there after receiving a master’s degree from the University College of Swansea (now Swansea University).
Dr. Maguire joined the faculty at University College London in 1995 and never left.
She is survived by her parents. Her brother, Declan, died in 2019, also of cancer.
At Dr. Maguire’s memorial service, Dr. Price spoke about the energy and excitement her friend and longtime colleague generated at the lab, recalling that Dr. Maguire’s mother had called nightly to remind her daughter to go home.
“It wasn’t just a job,” Dr. Price said. “It consumed us, day and night.”
There was a sense that they were onto something big.
“We were among the first to use cutting-edge technology to peer inside the healthy, living human brain and witness its functions in action,” Dr. Price said. “It was an exhilarating and transformative time in neuroscience, and Eleanor’s curiosity and creativity were instrumental to numerous discoveries.”
Exercise is known to reduce cancer risk — but that doesn’t have to mean hard-core gym sessions or long runs.
A new study led by Oxford researchers reveals that casual walking and other light-intensity activities are enough to lower cancer incidence.
The number of steps was found to be more important than the pace of the walk, they found.
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Those who walked 7,000 steps per day had an 11% lower cancer risk compared to those taking 5,000 steps per day, and the risk was 16% lower for those taking 9,000 steps per day, according to a press release from the Oxford Centre for Early Cancer Detection at the University of Oxford.
Even shopping and performing household chores have been shown to reduce cancer risk.
A new study led by Oxford researchers reveals that casual walking and other light-intensity activities are enough to lower cancer incidence. (iStock)
Overall, those who had the highest total amount of daily physical activity were 26% less likely to develop cancer compared to those with the lowest amount, after adjusting for lifestyle factors, body mass index (BMI) and other health conditions.
The study, which was recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, analyzed activity tracker data for 85,394 people in the UK Biobank averaging 63 years of age.
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They then compared that data with future cancer diagnoses in 2,633 participants over a nearly six-year period.
While previous studies have used self-reported exercise to determine reduced cancer risk, this one used “more precise data” based on wearable activity trackers.
“Our research highlights the importance of all forms of movement,” senior study author Aiden Doherty, professor of biomedical informatics at Oxford Population Health, said in the release.
“Whether it’s increasing daily steps, engaging in light activity or incorporating moderate-to-vigorous exercise, any level of physical activity appears to contribute to lower cancer risk.” (iStock)
“Whether it’s increasing daily steps, engaging in light activity or incorporating moderate-to-vigorous exercise, any level of physical activity appears to contribute to lower cancer risk.”
“Our findings support and enhance current national and international physical activity guidelines, showing that people who often engage in simple low-intensity activities, such as walking, have a lower risk of developing cancer.”
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Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News senior medical analyst, pointed out that cancer is linked to inflammation, which is linked to sedentary behavior.
“All kinds of activity, including walking, increases metabolic function and decreases inflammation.” (iStock)
“All kinds of activity, including walking, increases metabolic function and decreases inflammation,” Siegel, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
“The results of this study are not surprising and are in keeping with previous and ongoing research.”
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
In addition to Oxford Health researchers, experts from the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute participated in the study.
Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health’s Intramural Research Program and the National Institutes of Health’s Oxford Cambridge Scholars Program.
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Health
Weight loss, diabetes drugs can cause mood changes: What to know about behavioral side effects
GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), medications that help control type 2 diabetes and obesity, can have a profound impact on physical wellness – but what about mental health?
Some examples of these medications include semaglutides, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, and liraglutide, like Victoza and Saxenda.
Various studies have pointed toward GLP-1 RAs causing mental health complications, such as anxiety and depression.
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) published research in June 2024 that considered the correlation between semaglutide therapy and “exacerbating mood disturbances.”
The study highlighted the association of negative mood changes in patients with type 2 diabetes with a history of depression, warning healthcare providers to be aware of this “potential risk.”
Studies have debated the correlation between GLP-1 RA drugs and mood changes. (iStock)
But a more recent study, published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, suggested that these mood changes were linked to genetic variations across diverse populations and ancestries within the U.K. Biobank.
While GLP-1 RA variants had “consistent cardiometabolic effects” across all groups, the researchers said the negative impacts on mental health were “more varied,” concluding that any behavioral changes are “likely not acting directly through [the medications].”
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Doctors weigh in on medications and mood
Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurosurgeon who often prescribes GLP-1 RAs to his patients, believes that there is “no consistent causal relationship” between these medications and mental illness.
“Researchers assayed genetic markers across almost half a million people from different backgrounds in search of a link between the gene behind GLP-1 receptors and mental health problems like depression, anxiety or suicidal ideation — and they didn’t find it,” he summarized.
GLP-1 receptor agonists have been linked to mood changes, patients and doctors have reported. (iStock)
People who are obese or battling type 2 diabetes are “often already depressed” without the medication, the doctor pointed out.
“These conditions take a toll – physically, emotionally and socially,” he said. “So, yes, a large portion of patients starting GLP-1 drugs are already dealing with mental health struggles. But that’s not because of the drug — that’s because of the disease.”
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Once these individuals begin dropping weight, blood sugar stabilizes and energy improves, which usually lifts their mood as well.
“GLP-1 drugs help people reclaim their health,” Osborn noted. “They reduce inflammation. They lower blood sugar. They shrink waistlines.”
“And when people look and feel better, when their bodies finally start working for them instead of against them, they often smile more, not less.”
“GLP-1 drugs help people reclaim their health,” one doctor said. “And when people look and feel better, when their bodies finally start working for them instead of against them, they often smile more, not less.” (iStock)
Dr. Muhammad Ghanem, a bariatric surgeon at Orlando Health Weight Loss and Bariatric Surgery Institute, shared in a separate interview with Fox News Digital that while some of his patients have reported mood changes, others “don’t have that at all.”
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“Depression or mood changes are very common regardless, especially nowadays, and so it’s hard to [determine] whether this is related to the GLP-1 agonist medications, or whether it just happens to be that they started suffering from these after they started that medication,” he said.
“It’s really hard to tell whether it’s a personality change that can happen because of weight loss or if it’s a side effect because of mood changes,” he added. “I don’t think we have enough data to reach that conclusion yet.”
For those who are interested in GLP-1 RA medications or are experiencing mood changes while taking them, an expert stressed the importance of keeping in close contact with medical providers. (iStock)
Patients who lose weight with GLP-1 RAs can experience a “big boost” in confidence, as well as a change in personality and even relationships, according to Ghanem.
“It really depends on the person and the support system they have,” he said. “You need proper, randomized controlled trials to reach a conclusion, and better studies to determine whether this is related to the medication itself or just weight loss.”
“It’s important for all doctors who prescribe these drugs to be aware and check the patient’s history.”
For those who are interested in these medications or are experiencing mood changes while taking them, the surgeon stressed the importance of keeping in close contact with medical providers.
“Just like any other medication, they can have potential side effects,” he said.
Ghanem recommended seeking out professionals and practices who take a “holistic approach” to weight loss, offering mental health support in addition to medication.
Dr. Brunilda Nazario, MD, chief physician editor of medical affairs at WebMD, told Fox News Digital that “obesity is complicated.”
“Obesity specialists … are cautiously excited about how well these drugs work,” she said.
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“With current studies showing conflicting results on mood disorders and the use of GLP-1 drugs, it’s important for all doctors who prescribe these drugs to be aware and check the patient’s history before prescribing [them].”
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you feel something is not right — your health depends on it,” one expert suggested. (iStock)
Nazario stressed that it’s “vital” for GLP-1 RA users to listen to their bodies, urging them to pay attention to their feelings and know the symptoms of mood disorders.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you feel something is not right — your health depends on it,” he added.
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
Nazario noted that GLP-1 RAs can affect mood in many different ways.
“They are not all negative — they have the potential to improve mood as well,” she said. “Just seeing great results can boost self-esteem, confidence and body image.”
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