Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Photogrpah of Eleanor Anne Maguire. Eleanor Anne Maguire (1970–2025) was an Irish neuroscientist renowned for her ground-breaking research into human memory, spatial navigation and the role of the hippocampus in these processes. She served as professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, where she was also a Wellcome Trust principal research fellow and deputy director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging. She was a pioneer in the use of neuroimaging and virtual reality to study human memory in ‘real-life’ scenarios. Her most famous work involved studying London taxi drivers, demonstrating that acquiring ‘the knowledge’ was associated with an increase in the volume of part of their hippocampus. This result demonstrated that the human brain remains plastic and can form new connections in adult life. Having shown that the human hippocampus is involved in navigation as well as memory, Maguire developed ‘scene construction theory’. This theory unifies a range of cognitive functions and has had a significant effect on the field of neuroscience.
Author: Chris D. Frith
Institution: British Academy
Language: English
Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: British Academy
OpenAlex ID: W7170066632