Speak more than one language: do ’ shield ’ against Alzheimer’s?
-Basque Research Center BCBL needed the participation of hundreds of people over age 65, both bilingual and monolingual, to investigate if bilingualism protect against neurodegenerative diseases
-Research, based on neuroimaging tests, intended to contrast earlier studies suggesting that bilingual older people can be better protected than the monolingual
Spain, January 2013.- several international studies on the behavior of the human brain have carried first-class neuroscientists consider that bilingualism can protect the brain of older persons from various degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.
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 throw more light on this topic. For this purpose, needs the participation of hundreds of people over age 65, both bilingual and monolingual, 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 Canadian Ellen Bialystok, whose findings suggest possible both functional and structural differences between the monolingual and multilingual persons. Mainly, these findings suggest that persons who speak more than one language develop the capabilities associated with the central executive system in a more efficient way than people who only speak one language, so the scientific community already debate about the existence of a ‘ bilingual advantage ’.
The central executive system is directly connected with ability to maintain attention into action ignoring possible distractions, as well as the ability to split attention to be able to carry out several tasks at the same time.
The hypothesis
According to Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, doctor in psychology and researcher of the BCBL, seems sensible to think that if multilingualism really provides certain advantages to the cognitive system, these advantages are displayed in a manner clearer on those people who, due to 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 for the elderly by way of ‘ shield ’ against normal cognitive decline associated with the age ”.
Duñabeitia ensures that is a field that has begun to be investigated very recently, but there are indications 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 conclusions will be already by end of this year.
about the BCBL
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) is an International Centre for interdisciplinary research headquartered in San Sebastian for the study of cognition, brain and language promoted by the Basque Government to promote science and research in the Basque country. The Centre, 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” / >
