Cabbies' animal instincts

It gives a whole new meaning to rat runs, but taxi drivers really do use a form of rodent-like cunning to find their way around.

Their navigational skills may be down to a kind of brain cell found in rats which helps the mind focus on landmarks as guides to get from A to B without needing an A to Z. The parahippocampal cortex is the area where the cells are found.

According to findings published in the journal Nature, this is the part of the brain where the cells react most when landmarks are spotted.

In rats these cells are the main reason behind real rat runs - routes rodents take to get from one place to another.

Humans were shown to react in the same way when they played a game based on taxi journeys devised by researchers from universities in Massachusetts, Tel Aviv and Los Angeles.