ArticleFrontiers in psychology2022
Increased Gray Matter Volume Induced by Chinese Language Acquisition in Adult Alphabetic Language Speakers.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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2 citing papers in PubMed, 2 citations in OpenAlex.
- The anatomical basis of morpho-syntactic computation reflected in gray matter volume and pattern of the inferior frontal gyrus.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Learning Chinese induces altered resting-state functional connectivity relating to orthographic and phonological processing in adult alphabetic language speakers.Brain structure & function · 2025Article
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12 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
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Abstract
It is interesting to explore the effects of second language (L2) acquisition on anatomical change in brain at different stages for the neural structural adaptations are dynamic. Short-term Chinese training effects on brain anatomical structures in alphabetic language speakers have been already studied. However, little is known about the adaptations of the gray matter induced by acquiring Chinese language for a relatively long learning period in adult alphabetic language speakers. To explore this issue, we recruited 38 Indian overseas students in China as our subjects. The learned group included 17 participants who had learned Mandarin Chinese for an average of 3.24 years and achieved intermediate Chinese language proficiency. The control group included 21 subjects who had no knowledge about Chinese. None of the participants had any experience in learning logographic and tonal language before Chinese learning. We found that (1) the learned group had significantly greater gray matter volume (GMV) in the left lingual gyrus (LG) compared with the control group; (2) the Chinese characters' reading accuracy was significantly and positively correlated to the GMV in the left LG and fusiform gyrus (FG) across the two groups; and (3) in the learned group, the duration of Chinese learning was significantly and positively correlated with the GMV in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) after correction for multiple comparisons with small volume corrections. Our structural imaging findings are in line with the functional imaging studies reporting increased brain activation induced by Chinese acquisition in alphabetic language speakers. The regional gray matter changes reflected the additional requirements imposed by the more difficult processing of Chinese characters and tones. The present study also show that the biological bases of the adaptations induced by a relatively long period of Chinese learning were limited in the common areas for first and foreign language processing.
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