ArticleFrontiers in aging neuroscience2021
Second Language Learning in Older Adults: Effects on Brain Structure and Predictors of Learning Success.
Article in Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neuroplasticity in adult second language learning: a systematic scoping review of structural and functional neuroimaging evidence.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Enhancing Foreign Language Learning Approaches to Promote Healthy Aging: A Systematic Review.Journal of psycholinguistic research · 2024Pooled it
- Language reorganization in brain arteriovenous malformations with fiber-based regional functional connectivity.Magnetic resonance letters · 2027Article
- Baseline cognitive status and adherence are associated with cognitive change following language learning in older adults: an exploratory study.Frontiers in aging · 2026Article
- Brain-Inspired Multisensory Learning: A Systematic Review of Neuroplasticity and Cognitive Outcomes in Adult Multicultural and Second Language Acquisition.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Second language learning in older adults modulates Stroop task performance and brain activation.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2024Article
- Within-person changes in the aging white matter microstructure and their modifiers: A meta-analysis and systematic review of longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging studies.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2023Article
- Cognitive and contextual factors modulating grammar learning at older ages.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Article
- Foreign Language Learning in Older Adults: Anatomical and Cognitive Markers of Vocabulary Learning Success.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
- Beneficial effects of foreign language learning and aerobic exercise on dentate gyrus volume and mnemonic discrimination in healthy older adults: Results from a randomized controlled trial.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)Article
- Impact of an 18-month non-native language intervention on episodic memory and the underlying neural mechanisms in cognitively unimpaired older adults.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It has previously been demonstrated that short-term foreign language learning can lead to structural brain changes in younger adults. Experience-dependent brain plasticity is known to be possible also in older age, but the specific effect of foreign language learning on brain structure in language-and memory-relevant regions in the old brain remains unknown. In the present study, 160 older Swedish adults (65-75 years) were randomized to complete either an entry-level Italian course or a relaxation course, both with a total duration of 11 weeks. Structural MRI scans were conducted before and after the intervention in a subset of participants to test for differential change in gray matter in the two groups in the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal gyrus, and the hippocampus, and in white matter microstructure in the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), fronto-occipital fasciculus, and the hippocampal (HC) section of the cingulum. The study found no evidence for differential structural change following language training, independent of achieved vocabulary proficiency. However, hippocampal volume and associative memory ability before the intervention were found to be robust predictors of vocabulary proficiency at the end of the language course. The results suggest that having greater hippocampal volume and better associative memory ability benefits vocabulary learning in old age but that the very initial stage of foreign language learning does not trigger detectable changes in brain morphometry in old age.
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Registered trials
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