Cognitive thought more efficient in bilinguals

Marcus Atkinson

HispanicOhio.com editor

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Those who speak more than one language have more efficient brain than those who speak just one language, according to a study released by the Journal of Neuroscience.

NBC reports (http://tinyurl.com/an9or5h) repots researchers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington have why some people brains seem to be protected from mental decline, and results have shown

The report said as we age, cognitive function slows and the ability to concentrate on one task without distraction declines.

“There was already some behavioral evidence looking at reaction and accuracy showing that bilinguals slow less as they age in these cognitive areas,” neurobiologist Brian Gold, Ph.D. told NBCNews. “We wanted to understand what the neural basis of that is.” In other words, what parts of the brain are involved in this protective effect, and how does it work?

After various test subjects of different ages, both multilingual and monolingual, results showed older monolingual people had to use much more brain power than younger people, or those the same age but spoke more than one language.

Researchers said the loss of cognitive thinking is not structural, but the daily switching from one language to the next keeps the brain working efficiently, must like a muscle.