In a study, researchers use neuroimaging methods to examine brain resilience in regions of the brain linked to language and aging.
They found that the hippocampus in bilinguals with Alzheimer's disease was noticeably larger than those who were monolingual when matched for age, education, cognitive function and memory, which suggests that there may be some form of brain maintenance related to bilingualism.
"There was greater brain matter in the hippocampus, which is the main region in the brain for learning and memory and is highly affected by Alzheimer's," says the study's lead author, PhD candidate Kristina Coulter. She co-wrote the study with Natalie Phillips, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Concordia University Research Chair in Sensory-Cognitive Health in Aging and Dementia.
"The brain volume in the Alzheimer's-related area was the same across the healthy older adults, the two risk states and the Alzheimer's disease group in the bilingual participants," says Coulter."This suggests that there may be some form of brain maintenance related to bilingualism.
Cognitive reserve refers to the way a brain can use alternative pathways to maintain functionality even when it has been damaged or experienced shrinkage linked to aging. Brains with greater cognitive reserve can use other parts of the brain than those usually associated with a particular function, such as language or memory, thanks to a lifetime accruing cognitive flexibility.
Future work from these Concordia researchers will delve into whether being multilingual has a similar positive influence on brain networks.With the rise of new drugs that can target the amyloid-beta plaques in the brain that are an early sign of Alzheimer's disease, new ways are needed to determine whether memory loss and thinking ...
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