Learning a New Language Benefits the Brain like Exercise
Learning and practicing something, for instance a second language, strengthens the brain like physical exercise – according to a new study from Penn State University.
The research team, headed by Ping Li, professor of psychology, linguistics and information sciences and technology at Penn State, studied 39 native English speakers’ brains over a six-week period as half of the participants learned Chinese vocabulary. Of the subjects learning the new vocabulary, those who were more successful in attaining the information showed a more connected brain network than both the less successful participants and those who did not learn the new vocabulary.
They also found that the participants who were successful learners had a more connected network than the other participants even before learning took place. A better-integrated brain network is more flexible and efficient, making the task of learning a new language easier.
The efficiency of brain networks was defined by the researchers in terms of the strength and direction of connections, or edges, between brain regions of interest, or nodes. The stronger the edges going from one node to the next, the faster the nodes can work together and the more efficient the network.
For the study, participants each underwent two fMRI scans—one before the experiment began and one after—in order for the researchers to track neural changes. At the end of the study period, the researchers found that the brains of the successful learners had undergone functional changes—the brain network was better integrated.
Such changes, Li and colleagues suggested while reviewing a number of related studies, are consistent with anatomical changes that can occur in the brain as a result of learning a second language, no matter the age of the learner, as they reported in a recent issue of Cortex.
"A very interesting finding is that, contrary to previous studies, the brain is much more plastic than we thought," said Li, also co-chair of the interdisciplinary graduate degree program in neuroscience. "We can still see anatomical changes in the brain [in the elderly], which is very encouraging news for aging. And learning a new language can help lead to more graceful aging."
The new study was published in the Journal of Neurolinguistics.