Linguistic immersion and structural effects on the bilingual brain: a longitudinal study

DeLuca, V., Rothman, J. and Pliatsikas, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7093-1773 (2019) Linguistic immersion and structural effects on the bilingual brain: a longitudinal study. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 22 (5). pp. 1160-1175. ISSN 1469-1841 doi: 10.1017/S1366728918000883

Abstract/Summary

Learning and using additional languages can result in structural changes in the brain. However, the time course of these changes, as well as the factors the predict them, are still not well understood. In this longitudinal study we test the effects of bilingual immersion on brain structure of adult sequential bilinguals not undergoing any language training, who were scanned twice, three years apart. We observed significant increases in grey matter volume in the lower left cerebellum, mean white matter diffusivity in the frontal cortex, and reshaping of the left caudate nucleus and amygdala and bilateral hippocampus. Moreover, both prior length of immersion and L2 age of acquisition were significant predictors of volumetric change in the cerebellum. Taken together, these results indicate that bilingualism-induced neurological changes continue to take place across the lifespan and are strongly related to the quantity and quality of bilingual immersion, even in highly-immersed adult bilingual populations.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/78103
Identification Number/DOI	10.1017/S1366728918000883
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Neuroscience Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Clinical Language Sciences Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM)
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
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