Bilingualism and "brain reserve": a matter of age.
Advantage
Broca's region
Cognition
Cortical thickness
Gray matter volume
Language
Monolingual
Multilingual
Neurodegeneration
Wernicke's region
Journal
Neurobiology of aging
ISSN: 1558-1497
Titre abrégé: Neurobiol Aging
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 8100437
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
09 2019
09 2019
Historique:
received:
02
02
2018
revised:
22
05
2019
accepted:
30
05
2019
pubmed:
8
7
2019
medline:
7
5
2020
entrez:
8
7
2019
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
There is a lively debate whether bilingualism as a state of permanent cognitive control contributes to so-called brain reserve, thus delaying the onset of symptoms associated with neurodegeneration by up to 5 years. Here, we address this question in a large-scale (n = 399) population-based study. We compared the gray matter volume of monolinguals versus bilinguals in the left inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal lobule cortex and its modulation by biological age. Three core findings emerged: (1) Brain volume was systematically higher in bilinguals than monolinguals. (2) This difference disappeared at higher ages, and the slope of decline was steeper for bilinguals than monolinguals. (3) The volume difference between age groups disappeared in the inferior frontal gyrus at earlier ages than in the inferior parietal lobule. Thus, bilingualism might indeed contribute to brain reserve in older age, with posterior regions showing a particular resilience to atrophy and thus less necessity for functions to shift to anterior control regions.
Identifiants
pubmed: 31280119
pii: S0197-4580(19)30177-0
doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2019.05.021
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
157-165Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.