Remember those Brain Age games Nintendo sold, presumably to give older people a justification to buy a Nintendo DS if they were too insecure to say they just really liked playing Kirby Planet Robobot? Remember the floating, low-polygon head that was your guide in those games? Well, that head has a name, because the low-polygon digital version of that head is based on the real-world head of Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, who uses that head to store his brain and teeth, as well as providing a good mounting point for his eyeballs, as well as his rich, luxuriant head of hair.
Dr. Kawashima is a Professor at the Department of Functional Brain Imaging, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC) at Tohoku University, where he has undertaken extensive research into brain imaging and mapping, development of brain functions, and, most relevant for what I’d like to tell you about today, Dementia Prevention.
Before I get to that, though, here’s a little reminder of how you likely have known Dr.Kawashima:
…and it’s worth mentioning that Dr.Kawashima is the only actual, living human being, and, I believe, the only neuroscientist, to be featured in a Smash Bros game:
All of this is to say that what I’m about to tell you isn’t coming from some nobody; it’s coming from a polygonal head that you may have once played some puzzles with, so you know you can trust this information. And the information you can trust is this: driving a manual transmission is good for your brain. Your ever-aging brain.
As Dr.Kawashima told Japan’s Best Car Web,
“You have to judge and then pick the optimal gear according to the situation, and this puts a better load on the brain’s cognitive functions than driving a passive automatic transmission car,”
… and you know what? He’s absolutely right about that. You do have to think about your optimal gear choice given your situation, your speed, your next steps (are you planning on making your move as you exit that corner or just flowing with traffic?), and so on. These insights are from a study undertaken by Kawashima and his colleagues at Tohoku University, which finds that the increased cognitive load of driving stick seems to have a beneficial effect on brain health and, potentially, dementia prevention. As the Best Car Web story summarizes,
“The main reason why driving a manual transmission (MT) car helps prevent dementia is that it’s “fun to drive.” Now that we’re used to automatic transmission cars, the feeling of choosing a gear ourselves, pressing the clutch, and shifting gears feels refreshing.
The fact that you have to press the clutch with your left foot and engage it with a delicate touch in conjunction with the accelerator is fundamentally different from the simple automatic transmissions and CVTs where you just put it in D range and press the accelerator and brake.”
This all feels pretty obvious to me; driving a stick shift car is a bit of a dance; you’re balancing inputs from what you see, hear, and feel, what you read on the instruments, what you feel the car doing, and then there’s the coordination of your shifting hand, clutch foot, and accelerator foot that all must work in perfect synchronization to get those nice, smooth shifts you crave.
It’s getting harder and harder to find new manual transmission cars, of course; less than 1% of new cars sold are manuals, and there are fewer than 30 currently on sale now in America. Look at this chart covering 1980 to 2025 – the L and A labels are for geared automatics, CVTs are for continuously-variable automatics, SS is “single speed,” like EVs, and all the Ms are for manual transmissions:
It’s grim! Hardly any Ms left!
But maybe this study will change some things, now that we have some evidence to show that if you want to keep an aging brain virile and sharp, there’s direct action you can take: buy your grandmother a Miata.
Top graphic images: Nintendo; Toyota
When I had a long, awful commute in college I bought a stick shift Accord to replace my automatic Mustang. Part of my logic was I was less likely to fall asleep driving it at 5:30am if my brain was engaged in the act of using the clutch/transmission.
Japan’s take on machine operations and human physiology can be… interesting.
A while ago I came across the instruction manual for an RC helicopter kit. It recommends that children or menstruating women should not operate an RC helicopter.
Um… OK.
Now let me use HSA/FSA dollars for one! They’re letting people buy bicycles with them.
When I had manual transmission vehicles, the shifting part seemed to be something I WASN’T thinking about. It was like my arms and legs were on auto-pilot.
Subconscious tasks are great mental exercise.
I did my part! Bought a Mustang GT with a six speed transmission last year. My brain needs all the help it can get.
So this is the underlying reason I’ve been looking for a Fiat 500C manual (Abarth?). I’m thanking the good doctor for this rational reason in my older (wiser?) brain, as my wife thinks I just want another toy.
What’s that little 0T on the top there in the 1980’s? No transmission?
The short-lived Chevy Caprice Flintstones Edition.
Looking at those charts makes me feel like I have dementia.
In addition to the mental work that it takes to shift, think about the manual dexterity you develop while eating and driving a MT. You’ve got to carefully balance the sandwich/burrito/burger/whatever while waiting for the right moment in between shifts to grab a bite.
Add your cappuccino to the mix and you are totally multitasking away from brain death.
I developed great nonverbal communication and teamwork skills eating fried chicken while joint-operating a manual with my passenger in college. With each of us holding a drumstick in one hand, I had to delegate operation of the shifter.
Try riding a motorcycle in all the various types of environments: from heavy stop and go traffic, to mountain roads, to bad weather, to terrific views that you can’t really look at, to whatever…you are using both hands, both feet, and are constantly moving your eyes about and maintaining a steady focus on what’s coming up, and what MIGHT that idiot drive do and what you need to do to evade whatever! It might be the most impressive way to avoid having your brain get old.
I totally buy it. It’s common knowledge that if you don’t use certain skills they atrophy. A natural artist who doesn’t practice his skill will either lose that ability or at least not have it progress. People who rely on Google to remind them of everything tend to have horrible memory. All that stuff is interconnected. Shifting a manual works your brain and forces you to concentrate.
Funny thing is only old people in need of more cognitive development will know how to drive an a manual transmission vehicle.
I also see a great scene in a zombie apocalypse movie where people get trapped in an area where only manual cars are available. Every one under 50 gets eaten and all the old farts escape and go to Denny’s for the early Bird special
It also lessens the chance you’ll send it into that Denny’s when you were trying to back out of the parking space to leave.
Mash the gas pedal in a manual instead of the brake and all you get is noise since your other foot’s already on the clutch.
I used the zombie scenario to make the argument to my kids that they needed to learn to drive on a manual. What if the only car available in a zombie apocalypse had a stick? They were not impressed.
My son learned to drive manual because that’s what I passed on to him when I got me a shiny new car. Now he’s safe from zombies!
I’ll be teaching my niece how to drive a manual since I’m the only family member with one. She needs to escape the zombie apocalypse too!
Or in Europe… the movie just continues normally.
maybe it’s just that people who are driving manuals aren’t able to look at their brainrot phone while the tesla makes all the decisions on the road
Yeah because only Tesla has the I don’t drive I’m under 35 options
well other companies are willing to admit that full self driving is still a long way off and absolutely can’t be done with just cameras, so they tend to restrict where you can use it a lot more
Tesla Driver: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tesla-driver-asleep-9.7260847
it’s not only the under 35 that are doing that these days.
I suppose tap-dancing on a clutch pedal shifting a manual does require some level of mental exercise, but it really wasn’t something I gave a lot of conscious thought to in practice. It became “automatic” if you will.
My first car didn’t have a radio in it so I would make cassettes recording from a local rock and roll station and play them in a little Panasonic recorder placed on the hump between the front seats. One day, I was driving through town and a song I didn’t like came up on the tape as I was about to shift from first to second after pulling away from a stop sign. I put in the clutch, hit the STOP button on the recorder and let the clutch out, immediately lurching forward against the shoulder belt. It took a beat for me to realize what I had done, and it made me laugh out loud.
It still utilizes brain pathways in the background. Even Mike the Headless chicken required a bit of brain stem to perform unconscious actions and all the people who tried to unsuccessfully make their own “Mikes” found that out (if not the chickens because they were dead). I’d argue this isn’t just about a manual transmission and, if it weren’t for the automation and removal of engagement in everything, it probably wouldn’t matter much, but with so many people uninvolved with basic actions in life, where mindless scrolling of curated and targeted content replaces the thought required to engage with books or art, perhaps in such a void, something this small is possible to have an impact.
Name fits
The muscle memory aspect of it is a powerful thing, and it can work against you if you’re not careful. I only drove my manual Scirocco or my dad’s manual Golf in high school, right up until prom, when I was allowed to use my mom’s Audi 5000 – which was an automatic. And wouldn’t you know it, at the first stoplight, I pulled away, and tried to shift to second, and stepped on the “clutch” with my left foot. Damn near got rear-ended. My date would not let me live it down, either.
Maybe the key is to switch back and forth, and not become too comfortable with either option.
I bought a new manual in 2025. I did my part. It will probably be my last manual too sadly.
I agree with the overall premise, but I’ve met 2 people that I’ve tried to teach driving a manual to, and they just can’t seem to handle that many things at one time. They can steer, brake, accelerate, or shift just fine, but don’t you dare ask them to do two of them at once, much less 3. Both of these people are incredibly talented C++ / FPGA programmers that are great in social situations, but I refuse to ride with them in their own cars as they still can’t steer, brake, or accelerate at the same time and their natural panic response is to stop reacting in any way, occasionally slamming on the brakes if unwarranted, or not if warranted…
Every brain is wired differently. They like very complex tasks that involve a series of individual steps. I like very complex tasks that involve balancing 50 competing objectives to find the best efficiency. Their houses are tidy, nice looking, and boring, and they can probably tell you what they’ll be doing next Tuesday. My house is always 90% clean as I’ll eagerly spend 10 hours to save my self 30 minutes on something I don’t want to do in my never ending pursuit of laziness, and shift which 10% gets neglected, but it’s got a lot of cool stuff, yet absolutely 0 cohesive theme.
When I started driving manual, I remember asking someone if it served as a sort of DUI prevention device, given how hard it was for me to shift sober. I soon realized (not personally) that after developing the skill you could almost certainly drive drunk bc all the “thinking” happens through muscle memory.
All to say, I wonder how much exercise your brain is getting once you’re used to a stick.
If that had been the case there wouldn’t have been any drunk driving in Europe for many decades.
Imagine that in Spain or Italy!
The nice thing about Italian is that the officer has a harder time determining why you’re slurring your words. Could be the drink, could just be the fact that Italian comes from the factory pre-slurred.
I’d venture that it helps you stay under the radar if you are borderline over the limit. With a manual I am extremely aware of my speed since I’m always listening to the engine and thus never unintentionally speeding, but with automatics I frequently find myself speeding without noticing so getting popped for speed would lead to a side of DUI.
Yeah, I’ve driven a stick for 30 years. I get in a car and drive. I don’t think about what gear I want to be in, how to heel toe, when to shift, or any of that. It’s as much an automatic transmission for me as my wife’s van with its A6.
As for drunk driving, I’m a massive lightweight. One beer in, and all I can do is sit in a pile complaining that my head hurts and trying not to throw up. I don’t get migraines, that’s my wife’s specialty, but I think that my reaction to booze is very similar.
So, the only vehicle I could see DUI’ing (by accident of course) would be an EV since they are quieter.
There are people who are allergic to alcohol I suggest you get tested. Not for all the fun you’re missing but many things contain alcohol that can affect you medical wise.
Honestly, I’m 90%+ sure it is because of a long history of using my head as a battering ram when I was a kid.
I loved pee-wee football and played it HARD. I think I was concussed from about ages 7-13 every weekend during the fall. Having your “bell rung” was just part of the game and typically happened several times a game.
When I was 9, I was at Busch Gardens with my sister who was 18. It was hot and we went to the brewery tour to cool off. They had free samples. 24 oz cups of beer. My sister was allowed to get 3 (Bud, Busch, Bud Light) since she was 18. She discovered she didn’t like beer and she allowed me to finish them off, so I had about 50-60 ounces of beer in my 9 year old body. I felt GOOD. Right until she put my drunk little ass on a roller coaster. I didn’t get a headache, just a really bad tummy ache, just before all that fresh beer turned into froth and I did an impression of a giant bottle in the winner’s circle of a F1 race.
When I was 13, I was playing football and to a huge hit to the top of my head so bad that the helmet split in half. I was massively concussed and actually still have a small dent my head where it knocked the growth plates out of alignment (fortunately under the hairline, so the only clue I’ve had that bad a head injury is my personality). I was banned from playing football by the doctor for obvious reasons.
My parents would share a glass of wine for Thanksgiving every year (literally one glass between them once a year). I would get a little bit of wine too. That year was the first year I remember having a raging headache as soon as I drank.
So, I suspect strongly that my issue with alcohol is likely related to CTE caused by head injury when I was 13.
Muscle memory is still using your brain. It is just in the background doing it’s thing.
No I know, I’m saying that since it’s in the background, it doesn’t take much focus/concentration (once you have the hang of it).
I’m no neuroscientist, nor have I ever appeared in a video game as a disembodied head, but I’ll still wager a guess that exercising the “autopilot” functions in your brain helps to keep your brain functioning properly.
Different parts of your brain the ones not used as often except breathing, walking, and shifting
Even though unconscious, you are still using the very same brain.
Good thing I have three manuals then, and trying to buy a fourth.
If a manual is good for your brain, how bad is a gated automatic for your brain? I know my mental health took a hit that dark day and let’s be honest, it was never that hale in the first place.
I’ve not played smash since the gamecube, but did they just reskin Donkey Kong for that?
Looking at those graphs I have to wonder, who the hell was selling a manual three-speed in the early 90s?
I wouldn’t be surprised if you could still get a 3-spped coupled to a 300 inline 6 in the F-150 at that time. I bet the sold like 9 of them.
My 1989 Chevy is technically a four-speed, but it has a granny low, so in practice it’s three. And labeled as such on the knob: L-1-2-3-R.
SM465, right?
Dr.Kawashima, and the manual choke pulling, heal-toe downshifting, grandfather clock beating record setter have a point!
Does a Ferrari Automatic Stick Shift qualify?
If you’ve paid for a Ferrari, you’ve already lost your mind.
I agree with you, but those are still fighting words at Adrian
Maybe I should have said new Ferrari.
I do wonder what the car is in the topshot. 4-speed, push and all the way to the right for reverse, and also reasonably modern typeface.
(it’s a Toyota Sports 800!)
Oh, neat! Love those little Boxxer-engine guys! Like a chibi 2000GT…or I guess it’s the other way around since the 800 came first, but still!
Wow, talk about your UNintendo consequences!