ArticleScientific reports2023
Dynamic effects of bilingualism on brain structure map onto general principles of experience-based neuroplasticity.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Object Naming After Thalamic Damage: Evidence From a Large-Scale, Chronic-Phase Study of Left Hemisphere Stroke Survivors.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Selective cognitive effects of multilingualism emerge in visuospatial working memory in later life.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Foreign Language Syndrome: Neurological and Psychiatric Aspects.Neurology international · 2025Review
- Brain-Inspired Multisensory Learning: A Systematic Review of Neuroplasticity and Cognitive Outcomes in Adult Multicultural and Second Language Acquisition.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
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- Use of Multiple Languages Provides Cognitive Reserve Amidst Age-Related White Matter Changes.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Language and cognitive function in children: a narrative review of neural, behavioral, and developmental evidence.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Brain structure correlates of foreign language learning experiences.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Unveiling the neuroplastic capacity of the bilingual brain: insights from healthy and pathological individuals.Brain structure & function · 2024Article
- Mapping individual aspects of bilingual experience to adaptations in brain structure.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Effects of Cerebellar Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Bilingual Logopenic Primary Progressive Aphasia.Journal of Alzheimer's disease reports · 2024Article
- Do you sayFrontiers in psychology · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Bilingualism has been linked to structural adaptations of subcortical brain regions that are important for controlling multiple languages. However, research on the location and extent of these adaptations has yielded variable patterns, especially as far as the subcortical regions are concerned. Existing literature on bilingualism-induced brain restructuring has so far largely overseen evidence from other domains showing that experience-based structural neuroplasticity often triggers non-linear adaptations which follow expansion-renormalisation trajectories. Here we use generalised additive mixed models to investigate the non-linear effects of quantified bilingual experiences on the basal ganglia and the thalamus in a sample of bilinguals with a wide range of bilingual experiences. Our results revealed that volumes of the bilateral caudate nucleus and nucleus accumbens were significantly related to bilingual experiences. Importantly, these followed a non-linear pattern, with increases followed by plateauing in the most experienced bilinguals, suggesting that experience-based volumetric increases are only necessary up to a certain level of bilingual experience. Moreover, the volumes of putamen and thalamus were positively predicted by bilingual experiences. The results offer the first direct evidence that bilingualism, similarly to other cognitively demanding skills, leads to dynamic subcortical structural adaptations which can be nonlinear, in line with expansion-renormalisation models of experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
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Registered trials
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