Crazy Taxi Helps Brain Cell Research

Thanks to Betterhumans.com for their story regarding research using videogames to explore brain cells and navigation. According to the piece: "Understanding of how brain cells interact to help people navigate has been furthered by an experiment using epileptic patients who drove a virtual taxi while attached to an EEG monitor." While watching players of the game, which was presumably Crazy Taxi: "The researchers identified three distinct brain cells that helped the players navigate: Place cells [determining location], view cells [what was being seen in the environmen], and goal cells [involved in finding a location, person or thing]."

Did they find the Rage Cells?

[Kibo]

On one of the Crazy Box challenges I was trying to open for a friend who had the game, I was pushed past even the limits of self control instilled by the Ninja Gaiden games.

After picking up all the people from all over the board, behind all the obsticals, and making the tremendous jump, and navigating the narrow, windy, unlevel, flanked by the seemingly omnipresent bottomless pits, I reached the goal with my precious time slipping away. With time left the guys started piling out of my taxi. As the last turns to give me a high five for a job well done, the clock hits zero, and a giant "FAILED" assaults the center of the screen. In that moment, I understood the kind of white hot burning anger that can only be depicted in Warner Brothers cartoons, and Hulk comic books.

Only 3 cells used?

[bertvl]

Cool, that means the amount of brain cells I lose every time I quaff a beer won't affect my navigation skills!

Crazy Taxi rules

[MilenCent]

I consider CT to be an unusually good choice for this kind of thing, because it's an arcade-level action game with an unusually high potential for strategy, that pushes multiple areas of the brain at once instead of just the "special move" center over and over. "Strange, this CAT scanner is showing increased activity in the roll-forward, quick punch, fierce kick region."

Of course, I've played Crazy Taxi enough that my top score is around $69,000, and have lasted 40 minutes on one quarter, so you can consider me biased. (Sorry if that sounds like boasting. It is, of course, but we all need to boast once in a while.)

Bummer

[NanoGator]

This would have made a great story on the front page. Granted, it's about games, but the discussion could have branched out nicely.

They're NOT using Crazy Taxi!

[Man In Black]

I'm watching Daily Planet on Discovery channel right now, and they're showing this same story, along with some video of the program they're using... and it's definitely NOT Crazy Taxi! It's some unique (and rather crummy looking) 3D program that moves at one speed (and looks like it has bad handling too) and doesn't even show a car at all. All it shows is static buildings, ground and sky with nothing to interact with. Might as well be a Doom level.

I don't know who assumed that they were using Crazy Taxi, but they were wrong.