I’m lucky to live with people who not only have good brains and use them well, but are also tolerant enough to both provide me with thoughts I wouldn’t otherwise have and to listen to the mad ideas that pop in my transom.
Case in point:
Seeing the recent study on the change in brain wiring of London cab drivers gave me an idea. The study showed that cabbies brains showed strong development changes in the hippocampus region – it got bigger.
Long ago, I learned from Malabar that one of the most noteable neurological changes in adults who are survivors of childhood physical and sexual abuse is atrophy of the hippocampus, which is hard to correct in adults.
So… abuse survivors could train in The Knowledge. The process of learning the thousands of possible routes through London (usually done on bicycle/moped) seems to provide a specific stimulus to hippocampal growth. (Maybe this is due to the vast amount of visio-spacial processing required to gain The Knowledge, possible helped by the other senses – the smell of the brewery round the corner and the chippy near the roundabout, the sound of Speaker’s Corner…)
Hippocampus is stimulated, grows. Helps heal the damage. Once qualified, they could volunteer to drive for women-safe cab services.
Just an idea…