In my last report, I discussed a finding that intensive foreign language learning ‘grew’ the size of certain brain regions. This growth reflects gray matter increase. Another recent study looks at a different aspect: white matter.
In the study, monthly brain scans were taken of 27 college students, of whom 11 were taking an intensive nine-month Chinese language course. These brain scans were specifically aimed at tracking white matter changes in the students’ brains.
Significant changes were indeed observed in the brains of the language learners. To the researchers’ surprise, however, the biggest changes were observed in an area not previously considered part of the language network: the white matter tracts that cross the corpus callosum, the main bridge between the hemispheres. (I’m not quite sure why they were surprised, since a previous study had found that bilinguals showed higher white matter integrity in the corpus callosum.)
Significant changes were also observed within the left-hemisphere language network and in the right temporal lobe. The rate of increase in white matter was linear, showing a steady progression with each passing month.
The researchers suggest that plasticity in the adult brain may differ from that seen in children’s brains. While children’s brains change mainly through the pruning of unwanted connections and the death of unwanted cells, adult brains may rely mainly on neurogenesis and myelinogenesis.
The growth of new myelin is a process that is still largely mysterious, but it’s suggested that activity at the axons (the extensions of neurons that carry the electrical signals) might trigger increases in the size, density, or number of oligodendrocytes (the cells responsible for the myelin sheaths). This process is thought to be mediated by astrocytes, and in recent years we have begun to realize that astrocytes, long regarded as mere ‘support cells’, are in fact quite important for learning and memory. Just how important is something researchers are still working on.
The finding of changes between the frontal hemispheres and caudate nuclei is consistent with a previously-expressed idea that language learning requires the development of a network to control switching between languages.
Does the development of such a network enhance the task-switching facility in working memory? Previous research has found that bilinguals tend to have better executive control than monolinguals, and it has been suggested that the experience of managing two (or more) languages reorganizes certain brain networks, creating a more effective basis for executive control.
As in the previous study, the language studied was very different from the students’ native language, and they had no previous experience of it. The level of intensity was of course much less.
I do wonder if the fact that the language being studied was Mandarin Chinese limits the generality of these findings. Because of the pictorial nature of the written language, Chinese has been shown to involve a wider network of regions than European languages.
Nevertheless, the findings add to the evidence that adult brains retain the capacity to reorganize themselves, and add to growing evidence that we should be paying more attention to white matter changes.
(2012). White Matter Structure Changes as Adults Learn a Second Language.
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Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 240–250. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.03.001
Luk, G. et al. (2011) Lifelong bilingualism maintains white matter integrity in older adults. J. Neurosci. 31, 16808–16813