In a study, monthly brain scans were taken of a large group of college students, of whom about a half 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 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 main bridge between the brain hemispheres.
The rate of increase in white matter (which is a very important part of our brain) 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, adult brains may rely mainly on the creation of new ones, which is quite important for learning and memory
All of this helps prove that language learning requires the development of a network to control switching between languages.
Does the development of such a network enhance task-switching 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.
It’s important to note that the language studied in this research was very different from the students’ native language, and they had no previous experience of it.
There is, however, the fact that the language being studied was Mandarin Chinese, which 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 it’s a good idea to know at least one secondary language.
