Memory expert delivers annual science lecture at Bedales

In April, Professor Eleanor Maguire of University College, London delivered the annual Science Eckersley lecture – The past, present and future of memory – to pupils, staff, parents and the local community at Bedales. Eleanor Maguire has transformed understanding of how the brain supports navigation, memory and imagining the future, and in particular the role played by the hippocampus. In this fascinating lecture, Eleanor Maguire featured her memory research with London cab drivers – famous for memorising London traffic routes as part of their assessment test, ‘The Knowledge’. She also discussed the use of gaming, mobile brain scanners, Google Deep Mind, the World Memory Championships, Ancient Roman memory strategies, dreams, depression and the use of exercise to stimulate the production of new neurons. The Eckersley Lecture is named after brothers and former Bedales pupils, Peter and Thomas Eckersley.