Professor Eleanor Maguire, who sadly died on 4th January 2025, was a cognitive neuroscientist at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, which is where over the course of three decades, she devoted herself to advancing an understanding of the neural basis of memory and navigation.
Eleanor’s work significantly deepened our knowledge of how the human brain forms, represents, and recollects memories, as well as how these processes fail in neurological disorders.
She was a Principal Investigator in the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging. Eleanor was renowned for her pioneering use of cutting-edge neuroimaging and neuropsychological techniques, and celebrated for the ingenuity and ecological validity of her experimental contributions. She showed an unwavering commitment to steering neuroscience toward the study of naturalistic human brain function.
Eleanor was born on 27th March 1970 in Dublin, Ireland, to Anne and Paddy Maguire. She had a close relationship to her brother, Declan Maguire (1965-2019), and adored her two nephews.
By all accounts, including her own, Eleanor was a studious young woman, with a thirst for learning. Her academic journey included a BA in Psychology from University College Dublin (1990), an MSc in Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology from the University of Wales, Swansea (1991), and a PhD from University College Dublin (1994).
Eleanor’s research focused on the hippocampus – the part of the brain responsible for forming new memories, spatial navigation and emotional responses. And, through her research, she provided a unified account of how the hippocampus supports a range of cognitive functions—including episodic memory, imagining the future, spatial navigation, dreaming and mind wandering.
A key idea, that formed a unifying linkage of these domains, was the notion of scene processing. Eleanor substantiated her “Scene Construction Theory” with numerous studies that showed how the hippocampus constantly constructs spatially coherent scenes, automatically synthesising and anticipating representations of the world beyond what was immediately presented to the sensorium (the part of the brain that processes sensory information).
This, she proposed, was what enables us to re-experience the past (memory) and imagine future events and places which is - of course - essential for navigation.
A notable aspect of Eleanor’s work, as also the case for key pioneers in the field, was that many of her major discoveries emerged from her meticulous studies of patients with damage to both sides of their hippocampus.
Here she showed that these patients' imaginations were fragmented and lacked a cohesive representation of their surroundings. This led her to the idea that loss of spatial coherence offered a mechanistic explanation for the phenomenon of amnesia, and at the same time was fundamental to the construction of everyday memory.
Eleanor’s discoveries have had a huge public impact, not least her landmark study of London taxi drivers. Using brain imaging, she showed that the hippocampus of London cabbies physically changes when acquiring and deploying “The knowledge” – an internalised representation of streets, routes, and landmarks that fall within a six-mile radius of central London. This discovery remains one of the most compelling examples of the brain’s ability to adapt and change throughout life.
The fame that Eleanor acquired from this discovery alone meant that her colleagues have had the enduring pleasure of witnessing groups of A-level students visiting UCL who, on discovering 'Maguire' worked at UCL, were reduced to a frenzy of excitement and subsequent awe once she walked into the room.
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL, Cathy Price, who worked closely with Eleanor, said: “Her taxi driver study, widely regarded as a stroke of creative genius, exemplifies her trailblazing discoveries and inspirational research. Famously, though a world authority on navigation she was notoriously poor at negotiating even familiar environments.
“Eleanor was a force of nature and had a towering work ethic. Her immense clarity of thought allowed her to distil complex ideas with unparalleled clarity. As a mentor, she had an exceptional ability to articulate the key messages derived from complex research, inspiring others to think clearly and creatively. Eleanor’s team motto was: ‘We want to plant seeds, not prune hedges.’ And that’s exactly what she did.”
Over the course of her career, Eleanor received numerous awards, including the Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award, the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, the Feldberg Foundation Prize, and the Dargut and Milena Kemali International Prize. She was a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), and the Royal Society (FRS), and an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA).
Sir Demis Hassabis, co-founder of AI research laboratory Google Deepmind, was supervised by Eleanor during his time at UCL. Writing on a tribute page, he said: “It still doesn't seem real or fair that Eleanor has been taken away from us far too soon, and still in her prime with so many plans unfinished. My time spent in Eleanor's lab alongside Dharsh, Hugo, Katya et al were some of the most formative, productive, and just plain fun years of my career. It's where I really learnt to do deep rigorous research, and how it differed from the engineering disciplines I was used to.
“On one recent visit to the hospital we were fondly reminiscing of those halcyon days at the FIL in its golden age, and the intense but good humoured debates we used to have at lab meetings - she was always super supportive of creative (and even downright outlandish!) ideas, as long as they were big ones! Eleanor will be greatly missed by all who knew her, but she will always be a towering figure in the field of hippocampus and memory research, and her legacy will live on through the pioneering work she did and the many people she inspired.”
In her personal life, Eleanor was a lifelong supporter of Crystal Palace Football Club, chosen at a young age because of how pretty she imagined the Crystal Palace would be. She was also a loyal supporter of Irish Rugby.
Eleanor died on 4th January 2025, aged 54, after a two-year battle with cancer, which she faced with remarkable determination, bravery, and grace. Her courage throughout this challenging time exemplified the qualities that made her such an extraordinary person, admired by students, colleagues and the wider scientific community.
Professor Martina Callaghan (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology), who worked alongside Eleanor, said: “Eleanor leaves a lasting legacy of scientific discovery and knowledge. She will be profoundly missed by all who have had the privilege of knowing her.”