Being Bilingual Enhances Executive Functions and Brain

Bilin­gual­ism Asso­ci­at­ed With Brain Reor­ga­ni­za­tion Involv­ing Bet­ter Effi­cien­cy in Exec­u­tive Func­tions, Research Finds (Sci­ence News)

“Find­ings are very impor­tant because they show an unknown aspect of bilin­gual­ism, which goes beyond lin­guis­tic advan­tages, and they also show bilin­guals are more effec­tive in respond­ing to cer­tain stim­uli,” explains researcher Cesar Avi­la, who ensures the research shows that bilin­gual­ism does not only have effects on the brain at a lin­guis­tic lev­el, but that it also works dif­fer­ent­ly, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of intro­duc­ing lan­guages at an ear­ly age because it gen­er­ates cog­ni­tive benefits.

Jour­nal Ref­er­ence: G. Garbin, A. San­juan, C. Forn, J.C. Bus­ta­mante, A. Rodriguez-Pujadas, V. Bel­loch, M. Her­nan­dez, A. Cos­ta, C. Ávi­la. Bridg­ing lan­guage and atten­tion: Brain basis of the impact of bilin­gual­ism on cog­ni­tive con­trol. Neu­roIm­age, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.05.078

This study sup­ports anoth­er one we com­ment­ed on a few years ago on how Bilin­gual brains stay sharp longer:

“In short: learn­ing and speak­ing a for­eign lan­guage pro­vides con­stant brain exer­cise to the frontal lobes, the area of the brain right behind your fore­head that focus­es our atten­tion, helps us ignore dis­trac­tions, and make decisions.”