Structural Differences in Gray Matter between Glider Pilots and Non-Pilots

On Saturday, November 5, 2016 at 4:32:31 PM UTC-4, firsys wrote:

Experience 34.2 hrs, 15 min flights? Did I read this right?



The RAS subject title copies the paper's title. Age is 21-22. Not your typical 'glider pilot'.

10-15 minute flight duration

34.2 hours X 60 minutes = 2052 minutes

2052 minutes / 10 minutes = 205 flights
2052 minutes / 15 minutes = 137 flights

So 137-205 flights for each subject. Say 170 flights. 6 flights a week works out to about 7 months of training.

A 21 y.o. student is going to learn a lot in that phase. Seems plausible that there would be observable changes to the brain.

firsys wrote:

these are beginners. How could they have developed extra
gray matter?

'Experienced Based Structural Plasticity' and has been observed in musicians, golfers, London Cab Drivers. I'd be more surprised is this study did not observe changes in student pilot's brains.


Compare a student pilot to a budding musician. Unless you're a prodigy, 34 hours of practice on a musical instrument is not going to get you very far. Maybe that explains why it takes hundreds/thousands of hours 'to peak' at piloting a glider. I'd like to see the brain structure of some youngish expert pilots compared to the young student pilots in this study.