Study Finds Pilots’ Brains Work Differently

Pilots are people that can process operation of complex electro-mechanical systems while applying deft control of the systems based on physical stimuli and a through understanding of the expected outcome of changes to the system.

The whole process can be summed up in three words:

Fly the airplane.

My wife has told me my brain is different for over 40 years. Don’t give her any more ammunition.

Well, if you'll excuse the pun, this seems like a "no-brainer." While we mere mortals spend most of our lives in a 2-dimentional world, pilots live in 3-dimentions. That's got to have an impact. It would be interesting to see if this holds true for scuba divers or submarine captains.

Flying for a living isn't a job, it's a lifestyle. At least that's what I was told in F/A initial training. It really didn't feel like a job at all.

a person in any given profession TRAINS for the specifics of that job,and the brain adapts to the training given..whether you are a doctor,a nurse,an engineer,a geologist,an IT person,an engineer or yes, a pilot..i disagre wuth the premise given in the article that a pilots brain works differently...almost all of the airline pilots i have met however,do seem to have the "i am a god" mentality,and they let you know it!!

The article simply states that pilot’s brains may be different. That doesn’t necessarily mean better as many posters seam to assume. It could go either way. When they state time of useful consciousness at altitude, I see no correlation because I know many pilots who’s consciousness is not useful at sea level.

Retired pilot here. 5 years Navy, 35 years airline. 22,843 hours.
Interesting read and comments.

My take is the pilot in command during flight is constantly making or changing decisions based upon the variable inputs.

Perhaps "The Pilot Brain" is a learned trait over time.

It seems to me my thinking off the aircraft is more linear.

I have heard the "I am God" comments and attitude. People handle command differently. During a flight and emergency the pilot in command decides a course of action that crew may not agree with. The crew is normally not directly responsible for any injuries or death.

Study is on 26-year-olds (SD 3), with mean flight time 1200 hrs (SD 2400). It would be interesting to see results for say a 40-year-old with 15 000 hrs.

Ah, so THAT'S it..... I will tell my wife.

Flying is the fun part.. Gets a little difficult when someone is shooting at you!

Good ole multi-tasking or mental-juggling..

That explains it! Being an anesthetist and having been told that anesthetists make good pilots because we have to monitor so many things at the same time and coordinate them for good results, this explains why my friends (and sometimes family) seem to think my brain works differently than theirs. (I just tell them it's the nootropics I take. Yeah, right.)

My mind has always been in the gutter so I guess that's why I'm not a pilot.

My first time exposed to bananas was with a marine pilot instructor, ground school 1975. What followed was a 39 year airline career of International Flying both the line, training department. Total Bliss. Permanent Leave of Absence with COVID-19 finished my career. Thank all of you, hope for a better future.

We knew that from this board LOL

The problem with papers like this is they are snapshots of individuals who are employed to an environment but because the study has no depth are these innate qualities or learned. more likely are they pilots who have not been washed out along the way and have not reached their Peter Principle level before obtaining their current status.

I like this study, though I don't think it has any groundbreaking science about how the brain works. It seems to support that piloting(and learning to pilot)an aircraft probably makes us use our brains more in certain ways than those with comparable education. It improves connectivity measured outside the cockpit environment. What it does not tell us is wether this has any effect on other functioning outside the cockpit, but interesting to speculate on this.

This reminds me of a story that perhaps helps us understand more about why this is so interesting - hope you may enjoy this read:
https://www.acaedu.net/cms/lib3/TX01001550/Centricity/Domain/518/Basho%20and%20the%20Fox.pdf

All pilots have my utmost admiration!

We should be more concerned about the lack of brains of the non-pilots who design cockpit automation that overrules pilots and flies airplanes in to the ground. Pilot in command has been replaced by “programmer in command”.

Does "Flight Simulator" count?

It's on the internet, it must be true.

Made In China. Caveat emptor.

If you would like a couple stories of pilots whose brains short-circuited.....

Heard the same about cab drivers a long time ago.

Think of how this theory could have been completely screwed up had they collected data from the last Tail Hook Convention in Vegas.

And yet, that “wired differently” brain can easily fall prey to spatial disorientation when it should know better (i.e., trust your instruments).

You don’t a study, just ask any Flight Attendant?

Original report published in June 2020:
"These findings suggest that pilots might have better functional dynamics and cognitive flexibility".

..suggests .. might.
Junk science. Publish or perish.
But it is fun to speculate about ourselves ...

Liberals' brains work differently too.

I admire pilots so much...

Yeah like chimpanzee. Push button get banana