title: Structural plasticity of the left caudate in bimodal bilinguals.
abstract: Bilinguals need an effective neural mechanism to select and control their languages for successful communication. Recent evidence indicates that the left caudate nucleus (LCN) is a critical part of this mechanism. Here we show that bimodal bilinguals, who use spoken and sign languages, have greater grey matter volume (GMV) in the head of the LCN as compared to monolinguals. We also found higher functional activation of this region in bimodal bilinguals when they switched between sign language and spoken language compared to when they did not switch languages. Furthermore, GMV was positively correlated with the magnitude of the switching effect in the head of the LCN. These findings indicate that for bimodal bilinguals, the LCN is shaped by bilingualism both anatomically and functionally.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China.
authors: Lijuan
authors: L
authors: Zou
authors: Guosheng
authors: G
authors: Ding
authors: Jubin
authors: J
authors: Abutalebi
authors: Hua
authors: H
authors: Shu
authors: Danling
authors: D
authors: Peng
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019303:Multilingualism; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D012813:Sign Language