Speak more than one language: do ’ shield ’ Alzheimer’s?
-Basque Research Center BCBL needed the participation of hundreds of people over the age of 65, both bilingual and unilingual, to investigate if bilingualism protect against neurodegenerative diseases
-Research, based on neuroimaging tests, intended to compare previous studies suggesting that bilingual older people can be better protected than the monolingual
Spain, January 2013- international studies on the behavior of the human brain have led to world-class neuroscientists consider that bilingualism can protect the brain of older persons from various degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Although neuroscience has begun to study the relationship between bilingualism and Neurodegeneration ago just 5 years, the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) seeks to exploit the knowledge accumulated in its four years of existence and its location in a bilingual environment such as the Basque country to launch an ambitious study that shed more light on this topic. For this you need the participation of hundreds of people over the age of 65, both monolingual and bilingual, to start the investigation at its facilities in San Sebastian.
The hypothesis that establish a relationship between bilingualism and neurodegenerative diseases are based on a series of recent works in charge of renowned neuroscientists, as the Canadian Ellen Bialystok, whose findings point to possible both functional and structural differences between the monolingual and multilingual people. Mainly, these findings suggest that people who speak more than one language develop capabilities associated with the central executive system in a more efficient manner than people who only speak one language, so that the scientific community debate about the existence of a ‘ bilingual advantage ’.
The central executive system is directly related to the ability to maintain attention in action ignoring possible distractions, as well as the ability to divide attention to carry out several tasks at the same time.
The hypothesis
According to Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, doctor in psychology and an investigator of the BCBL, seems sensible to think that if multilingualism do actually provide certain advantages to the cognitive system, these advantages are displayed in a way clearer in people who, because of his age, begin to show a progressive decline in the functions of the Executive system ”.
In his view, is the ideal time to explore to what extent really speak more than one language serves to seniors as of ‘ shield ’ against normal age-associated cognitive impairment ”.
Duñabeitia ensures that is a field that has begun to be investigated very recently, but there is evidence that bilingualism may be a protective force and the BCBL can contribute knowledge to go forward in this matter ”.
The investigation of this hypothesis is already underway and its makers estimate that by end of this year will be already conclusions.
about the BCBL
El Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) is an international centre of interdisciplinary research based in San Sebastián for the study of cognition, brain and language promoted by the Basque Government to promote science and research in the Basque country. The Center, which is counted among the BERC (Basque Excellence Research Center), has among its partners to Ikerbasque, Innobasque, <? NS prefix = st1 ns = “urn: schemas-microsoft-com: office:smarttags” / >
