Being bilingual can slow the effects of aging
“This study provides some of the first evidence of an association between a particular cognitively stimulating activity—in this case, speaking multiple languages on a daily basis—and brain function,” says aging expert John L. Woodard, PhD, who was not involved with the study. In other words, being bilingual can slow the effects of aging!
A study published in The Journal of Neuroscience shows that seniors who have been bilingual—spoken two languages—since childhood are faster than single-language seniors at switching from one task to another. They also show different patterns of brain activity when making the switch between activites. The findings give people just another reason to value regular stimulating mental activity across their lifetimes.
As people age, cognitive flexibility, which is defined as the ability to adapt to unfamiliar/unexpected circumstances, declines. This and other recent studies suggest that lifelong bilingualism may reduce this decline. In the study, both groups performed tasks accurately, but the bilingual seniors were faster at completing them than their monolingual peers. In addition, the bilingual seniors expended less energy in the frontal cortex, the area controlling task switching.
“This suggests that bilingual seniors use their brains more efficiently than monolingual seniors,” lead researcher Brian T. Gold, PhD, says.
Reason enough to really start learning your Spanish, or Italian, or French, oui?
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