title: Bilingualism provides a neural reserve for aging populations.
abstract: It has been postulated that bilingualism may act as a cognitive reserve and recent behavioral evidence shows that bilinguals are diagnosed with dementia about 4-5 years later compared to monolinguals. In the present study, we investigated the neural basis of these putative protective effects in a group of aging bilinguals as compared to a matched monolingual control group. For this purpose, participants completed the Erikson Flanker task and their performance was correlated to gray matter (GM) volume in order to investigate if cognitive performance predicts GM volume specifically in areas affected by aging. We performed an ex-Gaussian analysis on the resulting RTs and report that aging bilinguals performed better than aging monolinguals on the Flanker task. Bilingualism was overall associated with increased GM in the ACC. Likewise, aging induced effects upon performance correlated only for monolinguals to decreased gray matter in the DLPFC. Taken together, these neural regions might underlie the benefits of bilingualism and act as a neural reserve that protects against the cognitive decline that occurs during aging.
authors: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Department of Clinical Neurosciences, San Raffaele University & San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milano, Italy. Electronic address: abutalebi.jubin@hsr.it.
authors: Jubin
authors: J
authors: Abutalebi
authors: Department of Clinical Neurosciences, San Raffaele University & San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milano, Italy; Istituto Universitario degli Studi Superiori-IUSS, Pavia, Italy.
authors: Lucia
authors: L
authors: Guidi
authors: Department of Clinical Neurosciences, San Raffaele University & San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milano, Italy.
authors: Virginia
authors: V
authors: Borsa
authors: Department of Clinical Neurosciences, San Raffaele University & San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milano, Italy; IBFM-CNR (National Research Council), Milan, Italy.
authors: Matteo
authors: M
authors: Canini
authors: IBFM-CNR (National Research Council), Milan, Italy.
authors: Pasquale A
authors: PA
authors: Della Rosa
authors: Psychology Department, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom.
authors: Ben A
authors: BA
authors: Parris
authors: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors: Brendan S
authors: BS
authors: Weekes
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D058245:Cognitive Reserve; D005260:Female; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019303:Multilingualism; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009929:Organ Size; D011930:Reaction Time
keywords: Bilingualism; Cognitive reserve; Ex-Gaussian analysis; Neural reserve; Voxel based morphometry