Why being bilingual protects the brain from Alzheimer’s disease

He Alzheimer’s It is a type of dementia that affects more than 50 million people worldwide, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) .

Although there is no definitive cure to treat it, scientists warned that activities that stimulate brain They are essential for protecting cognitive resilience as aging occurs.

Now a study conducted by Concordia University in Canada, suggests that speaking a second language could help delay Alzheimer’s disease. The results were recently published in the journal Bilingualism: language and cognition .

“Speaking more than one language is one of the many ways to engage cognitively and socially, which promotes brain health,” detailed Natalie Phillips, professor in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University and co-author of the study, in a press release.

Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder that causes progressive deterioration of memory, thinking, behavior, language and other cognitive abilities.

In this condition, brain proteins do not function normally, impacting the functioning of brain cells (neurons). The neurons then become damaged, lose their connections and die, causing irreversible damage to the brain.

Over the years, the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease worsen. The first signs are usually forgetting recent conversations or events. When the disease is at its most advanced, patients lose the ability to maintain a fluent conversation, sense of events happening around them, and require assistance with daily activities.

Researchers at Concordia University used neuroimaging methods to study brain resilience in all areas related to language and aging.

Brain resilience is a term that refers to the brain’s ability to cope with changes associated with aging. It is composed of three factors: brain maintenance, which is the ability to maintain its form and function; brain reserve, that is to say the size and structure of the brain; and cognitive reserve, which is how the organ uses other pathways to preserve its functionality when it has already suffered damage.

After carrying out the analysis, the researchers discovered that The hippocampus, the area of ​​the brain most linked to memory and affected by Alzheimer’s disease, was significantly larger and healthier in bilinguals than in monolinguals of the same age, education level and the same cognitive function.

“There was more brain material in the hippocampus, which is the main region of the brain for learning and memory and is greatly affected by Alzheimer’s disease,” said the study’s lead author. and doctoral student, Kristina Coulter.

The study also analyzed the brain characteristics of monolingual and bilingual older adults. These participants were in three different states: they did not have cognitive impairment, they were at risk of cognitive impairment, or they had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Focusing on these groups, researchers identified that although there was evidence of hippocampal atrophy in adults with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease who spoke only one language, there was no change in the hippocampal volume of bilingual adults.

For the expert, the above suggests that “There may be a certain form of brain maintenance linked to bilingualism” .

In another recent study, published in the Journal of Communication Biology a team of scientists from Canada and Spain proposed that bilingual brains could also be more efficient .

The researchers recruited 151 people of different ages and monolingual or bilingual. Participants then underwent resting-state MRI scans to examine their brain connectivity.

The team discovered that those who were bilingual showed more connectivity between different brain regions, compared to monolinguals and this connectivity was much stronger among those who had learned a second language from a young age.