ArticleScientific reports2021
Bilingualism is a long-term cognitively challenging experience that modulates metabolite concentrations in the healthy brain.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- The Neurodevelopmental Dynamics of Multilingual Experience During Childhood: A Longitudinal Behavioral, Structural, and Functional MRI Study.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Dynamic effects of bilingualism on brain structure map onto general principles of experience-based neuroplasticity.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- The Nuance of Bilingualism as a Reserve Contributor: Conveying Research to the Broader Neuroscience Community.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Type of bilingualism conditions individual differences in the oscillatory dynamics of inhibitory control.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
Cognitively demanding experiences, including complex skill acquisition and processing, have been shown to induce brain adaptations, at least at the macroscopic level, e.g. on brain volume and/or functional connectivity. However, the neurobiological bases of these adaptations, including at the cellular level, are unclear and understudied. Here we use bilingualism as a case study to investigate the metabolic correlates of experience-based brain adaptations. We employ Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to measure metabolite concentrations in the basal ganglia, a region critical to language control which is reshaped by bilingualism. Our results show increased myo-Inositol and decreased N-acetyl aspartate concentrations in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. Both metabolites are linked to synaptic pruning, a process underlying experience-based brain restructuring. Interestingly, both concentrations correlate with relative amount of bilingual engagement. This suggests that degree of long-term cognitive experiences matters at the level of metabolic concentrations, which might accompany, if not drive, macroscopic brain adaptations.
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