Lifetime of Speaking a 2nd Language May Boost Aging Brain
Seniors who were bilingual since childhood showed quicker thinking skills than others in study.
A lifetime of speaking two languages may help keep older people's brains sharper, researchers report.
The new study included healthy seniors, aged 60 to 68, who had spoken two languages (bilingual) or just one language (monolingual) since childhood. Their brain activity was monitored as they switched from one mental task to another.
Compared to those who were monolingual, the bilingual seniors were faster at switching from one task to another and used less energy in the frontal parts of their brain when making the switch.
The findings suggest that bilingual seniors use their brains more efficiently than monolingual seniors.
Together, these results suggest that lifelong bilingualism may exert its strongest benefits on the functioning of frontal brain regions in aging.
Expert tested younger bilingual and monolingual adults and found that, among the young study participants, those who were bilingual did not switch from one task to another more quickly and did not have different patterns of brain activity.
The study provides some of the first evidence of an association between a particular cognitively [mentally] stimulating activity -- in this case, speaking multiple languages on a daily basis -- and brain function.
The study provide clear evidence of a different pattern of neural functioning in bilingual versus monolingual individuals.
Source: U.S. of Dept. of Health & Human Services
- 330 reads
