Neurolinguistics: Structure, Function, and Connectivity in the Bilingual Brain

Advances in neuroimaging techniques and analytic methods have led to a proliferation of studies investigating the impact of bilingualism on the cognitive and brain systems in humans. Lately, these findings have attracted much interest and debate in the field, leading to a number of recent commentari...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BioMed research international 2016-01, Vol.2016 (2016), p.1-22
Main Authors: Wong, Becky, O’Brien, Beth, Yin, Bin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bilingualism
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Cognitive Neuroscience
Computational linguistics
Humans
Language
Language processing
Language proficiency
Linguistics
Magnetic resonance imaging
Medical imaging
Multilingualism
Natural language interfaces
Neural networks
Neuroimaging
Neurophysiology
Neurosciences
Review
Semantics
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Summary:Advances in neuroimaging techniques and analytic methods have led to a proliferation of studies investigating the impact of bilingualism on the cognitive and brain systems in humans. Lately, these findings have attracted much interest and debate in the field, leading to a number of recent commentaries and reviews. Here, we contribute to the ongoing discussion by compiling and interpreting the plethora of findings that relate to the structural, functional, and connective changes in the brain that ensue from bilingualism. In doing so, we integrate theoretical models and empirical findings from linguistics, cognitive/developmental psychology, and neuroscience to examine the following issues: (1) whether the language neural network is different for first (dominant) versus second (nondominant) language processing; (2) the effects of bilinguals’ executive functioning on the structure and function of the “universal” language neural network; (3) the differential effects of bilingualism on phonological, lexical-semantic, and syntactic aspects of language processing on the brain; and (4) the effects of age of acquisition and proficiency of the user’s second language in the bilingual brain, and how these have implications for future research in neurolinguistics.
ISSN:2314-6133
2314-6141
DOI:10.1155/2016/7069274