A large number of automobile enthusiasts still love manual gearboxes, despite the rising penetration of automatic transmission. According to a study, petrolheads who pour their energy into saving the manual transmission should continue to do so if they want to give their ageing brain a daily workout. A Japanese study has revealed that driving a manual gearbox-equipped car stimulates the prefrontal cortex, which automatics don’t do. In a nutshell, driving a manual car can actually result in better health of the driver’s brain.
The research done by Professor Ryuta Kawashima, who runs neuroimaging work at Tohoku University’s Institute of Development, Ageing, and Cancer, has found that the physical sequence of driving a manual car lights up the prefrontal cortex of the human brain, the region that handles memory, attention, and decision making. While driving a manual car, the driver’s brain reads traffic speed, controls clutch dipping, picks a gear by hand, and meters the throttle – all at once, and keeping these things coordinated demands a level of engagement that holds the driver’s attention from one moment to the next.
Asking the brain to juggle all these inputs every day functions as a kind of low-grade workout it would otherwise skip, in the case of driving an automatic car. This stimulates neural pathways, helping preserve cognitive function in a way that riding passively in an automatic or semi-autonomous vehicle simply cannot match.
The result of this study comes at a time when the traditional stick shift or manual cars are far less popular than automatics around the world. The manual cars, despite the benefits, are increasingly becoming a dying breed.
In India, manual transmission-equipped cars still dominate the overall car sales, accounting for about 55-60% of the market share, due to the lower upfront costs, better highway fuel efficiency, and a robust rural market. However, automatic transmission penetration is surging rapidly in urban areas and metros, now accounting for up to one in every three new car sales in top cities as drivers seek relief from dense traffic.
