Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

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Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby rdearman » Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:33 pm

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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby IronMike » Sat Apr 02, 2022 10:23 pm

Thanks for this. Will try to find this book at the library.
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby ewomack » Sun Apr 03, 2022 1:29 am

Admittedly, I've used this idea as a way to motivate myself to study languages, though I'm not sure how well one can prove a relationship at this time. It's worked as an "empty incentive," so even if absolutely no correlation between dementia and bilingualism emerges from research, the idea has nonetheless helped me enormously.

My feeling is that bilingualism will end up being one of many factors in the mix with a large "it depends" attached and a litany of diverse circumstances appended onto it. Similar to how some people smoke all of their lives and live to 90 while other smokers expire in their 60s or 70s, many factors and their specific interactions probably play different roles in different people.

A few people who work in the medical field and follow dementia research have told me that some possible correlation apparently exists between developing dementia and dental health. Some researchers found traces of gingivitis bacteria in the brains of some dementia patients and studies have sprung up from this finding. For all I know it's been completely dismissed by now, but the person with the medical background who described it to me made a pretty convincing case - enough to make me brush my teeth more often.

So, in the end, I don't know if bilingualism delays or forestalls the onset of dementia, but language study carries enough benefits to make it worthwhile even with zero correlation.
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby Lisa » Sun Apr 03, 2022 3:29 am

I expect learning a foreign language does help (and learning a musical instrument or bridge, etc.), but I suspect that learning the second and third languages have much less additional value...
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby rdearman » Sun Apr 03, 2022 7:22 am

Sometimes people are cured with sugar pills, the placebo effect is alive and well.
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby Carmody » Sun Apr 03, 2022 8:59 am

I have great respect for the placebo effect and so does Harvard.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby ShivChan » Sun Apr 03, 2022 9:04 am

It's an interesting question. Research suggests that during REM sleep there are synaptic changes in the hippocampus and temporal regions of the brain that involve new synapses being created to allow and improve the transfer of information. In other words, when we are in REM sleep the brain not only consolidates short term memory into long term memory but it also improves the efficiency in which this information is accessed via these synapses. Additionally, there is research indicating a strong correlation between synaptic loss and the memory loss in Alzheimer's disease. So, is this a chicken or an egg situation?

Sources:

https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(20)30354-8

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 92607/full
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Thu Jun 30, 2022 2:37 am

A while back I listened to a series of French podcasts on the topic of bilingualism called Revolution Bilingue. During a couple of episodes there was some information shared on this very topic, dementia. I've been meaning to reply to this thread for some months, finally a day before my next language mission, I can sit down and share some findings.


From episode 2 of Revolution Bilingue, November 24th, 2018, Les mystères du cerveau bilingue (The Mysteries of the Bilingual Brain) with Ana Ines Ansaldo.

Ana Ines Ansaldo speaks about her background in the podcast. Born in Argentina, thus spoke Spanish. Family origins Italian and Basque. She used some Italian while growing up, Basque not mentioned much, although I read she speaks 5 languages and from my calculations this would likely include Basque). English and Spanish learned at school. Her father had a stroke when she was 7 years old and she noticed the effects on language - aphasia then assumingly later involuntary code switching between English (he studied for some years in the US) and Spanish. She became interesting in learning more on autophony.

Later she went on to study the effects of bilingualism on the brain and emigrated to Canada. She did her doctorat at the l'Université de Montréal and had to learn French. She found learning French rather difficult as an adult in comparison to what she observed was the experience of her four year old son, who seemed to have an easier time of picking up the new language than her (as an adult). Here's a link to her academic profile here: https://www.laboansaldo.com/ansaldo_e.html and here (in French only): https://medecine.umontreal.ca/recherche/les-chercheurs-de-la-faculte/portraits-chercheurs/ana-ines-ansaldo-cerveau-malleable-a-souhait-presque/

Take from the last link: Professeure agrégée à l’École d’orthophonie et d’audiologie de l’Université de Montréal et directrice du laboratoire de plasticité cérébrale, communication et vieillissement au Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal, elle étudie depuis dix ans les circuits cérébraux dédiés à la récupération du langage et au bilinguisme.

She has published or co-published several papers on bilingualism and neuro-degenerative effects on the bilingual brain. Here's a link to a list of such: https://www.laboansaldo.com/publications_e.html. In the 2017 paper Is the bilingual brain better equipped for aging? Studies on neural and cognitive reserve in elderly bilinguals (Dash, T., Ghazi-Saidi, L., Berroir, P., Adrover-Roig, D., Benali, H., & Ansaldo, A.I. (2017) Is the bilingual brain better equipped for aging? Studies on neural and cognitive reserve in elderly bilinguals. OLBI Working Papers, Vol.8. https://doi.org/10.18192/olbiwp.v8i0.2120) and as discussed in the podcast it is not (yet?) conclusive/definitive that bilingualism halts neurodegeneration (eg Dementia), but evidence is mounting (as provided in this research paper) that bilingualism provides for better cognitive reserve(s), i.e. coping mechanisms.

What this means is that basically if Person A, a monolingual develops dementia at the same time and age as Person B who is bilingual or multilingual, Person B will be able to pull on linguistic reserves which could be labelled neurological reserves in a broader sense, to cope better as dementia sets in using workarounds in everyday situations.

To me it's like Carpenter A and Carpenter B developing a slow physical degenerative condition. Carpenter A has a toolbox/collection with say 10 tools while Carpenter B (the 'bilingual'/'multilingual') has 20 tools to use - some which are particularly advantageous for some tasks that have become rather difficult to carry out with declining health. Thus, the degenerative condition is not halted, not slowed down (as far as we know at this stage), but the ability to 'hide' it or cope at a higher functioning level for a longer duration before the disease renders normal function too critically degraded is higher in bi-/multi-linguals.

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From the same podcast (Révolution Bilingue), episode 22, Un cerveau bilingue est un cerveau en meilleure santé, 24 juin 2021:

Talks are taken and translated from Ellen Bialystok, another Canadian (English speaker), a psychologist and professor (Research Professor at York University, Toronto), Director of the Lifespan Cognition and Development Lab, associate scientist at the Rotman Research Institute of the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, 1976 (specialisation: cognitive and language development in children). Upon closer inspection, rdearman has linked to an article citing some of Ellen Bialystok's research in the OP.

Take from Ellen Bialystok's wikipedia page:

Bilingualism and the onset of dementia
The natural process of aging has a deteriorating effect on the brain, and commonly leads to detrimental conditions such as dementia or more specifically, Alzheimer's disease. With the bilingual advantage that appears to persist throughout a person's lifespan, it is plausible that symptoms of these conditions could be offset or further delayed by the lifelong advantages brought about by bilingualism.

White matter and brain reserve
As people grow older, it has been shown that white matter integrity in the brain generally decreases as the natural process of aging takes its course, resulting in a decline of cognitive functioning and control. Because previous work has demonstrated a greater cognitive ability in older bilingual adults, however, it is thought that lifelong bilingualism may mitigate this cognitive decline, resulting in a higher level of white matter integrity and connectivity in these individuals, and therefore greater cognitive ability over that of their monolingual counterparts.

Bialystok, Luk, Craik, and Grady, using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), measured the amount of white matter integrity in both monolingual and bilingual older adults. The results were consistent with the prediction and demonstrate a strong correlation between lifelong bilingualism and preserved white matter integrity, which might ultimately contribute to the higher level of brain reserve found in these bilingual individuals. A possible explanation holds that continued experience in the maintenance and management of two competing languages enhances and strengthens certain structural pathways in the brain, resulting in a widespread network of white matter connectivity, which then helps protect against natural cognitive decline.[10]

Cognitive reserve and Alzheimer's disease
Like the protection bilingualism appears to provide against general cognitive deterioration, it has been hypothesized that bilingualism may also slow the onset of symptoms specifically brought about by Alzheimer's disease (AD). It is thought that bilingualism might be a factor contributing to cognitive reserve, which in turn, may help delay the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms.[11]

Bialystok, Craik, Fischer, Ware, and Schweizer analyzed and measured brain atrophy in both monolingual and bilingual patients diagnosed with AD using computed tomography (CT) scans with the logic that bilingual patients, when matched with monolingual patients on level of disease severity, should exhibit more atrophy in areas typically used to discriminate between AD patients and healthy ones, as their enhanced cognitive reserve brought about by bilingualism would allow a higher level of functioning than would usually be associated with that level of disease. Results supported this notion and found that the bilingual patients with AD did, in fact, show a greater level of brain atrophy in relevant areas. Even with this increased level of atrophy, however, the bilingual group still performed at the same cognitive level as their monolingual counterparts.[12] These results support the hypothesis maintaining that bilingualism works as a contributor to cognitive reserve and acts as a modifier to behavioral expression that underlies brain atrophy associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Further research supports the above hypothesis, and extends it claiming that bilingualism can postpone the onset of the symptoms of AD by as much as 4–5 years. Bialystok, Craik, and Freedman collected data from bilingual and monolingual patients diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease regarding, most importantly, age of onset of cognitive impairment and language history and abilities. A 4.3 year delay in diagnosis and a 5.1 year delay in the reported onset of symptoms was found for the bilinguals in comparison to the monolinguals. Not only do these data support the notion of bilingualism contributing to cognitive reserve, thereby compensating for higher levels of brain atrophy, but also that bilingualism might even postpone the onset of AD symptoms by a dramatic 4–5 years
.



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Edited once to correct a link.
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:56 am

IronMike wrote:Thanks for this. Will try to find this book at the library.
There's a short video presentation by one of the authors on YouTube, NEDTalks Roger Kreuz.
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Re: Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jun 30, 2022 9:04 am

It is well known that "yes", with a few "buts".

The article mentions creations of new nerve cells in the hippocampus. This is sort of true, but it is not the only or most probably not even the main mechanism of protection. Also, the cell creation is not that massive, and definitely cannot cover the losses all over the cortex. What is massive in learning: creation of new synapses between the existing cells. Cells connecting themselves to many others. Synapses are the key to memory. And dementias make you lose cells and their synapses. The more synapses you have, the more you need to lose, in order to get to the "dementia showing level". That's why some of the commonly used depistage tests are much less reliable, when used on more educated people. So, education (including self teaching) matters a lot. That's why some people with "yes, this is the beginning of the Alzheimer's" CT scans are already showing very clear sings, while others with a similar scan just complain they can no longer remember their botanics terminology both in the native language and Latin (true story).

The bilingualism studies mentioned are definitely showing a correlation, not necessarily causality. Why: we know that people with overall higher education have more synapses than the less educated ones. So, I would assume that a bilingual market seller is "more educated" or "more synapsed" than a monolingual market seller, he has an extra skill (with a correlating extra amount of synapses) even if they have otherwise very similar lives. But similarily, perhaps a monolingual professor would show the same difference compared to that monolingual market seller.

So far, it looks like various things are protective, but none 100%. A healthy lifestyle seems to be. Education. Learning a new skill, that is a very good protective exercise. But it means that while a new language will be a perfect choice for most people, a person speaking several already may profit more from something "more new", such as learning to knit, play chess, maths, or cook.

Also, let's not forget Alzheimer's is by far not the only type of dementia. Vascular dementias are pretty common, almost never mentioned in popular articles like this one, and often falsely labeled as Alzheimers. Sometimes even on purpose by well meaning doctors, because some countries' insurances pay well for the Alzheimer treatment but don't pay for other types of dementia. Vascular dementias are not that often mentioned in the media, but you can prevent them much more easily. Keep your circulatory system in good shape, avoid tobacco, obesity, do some physical activity, etc.

Hmm. Not sure why the article (which I quickly read and sorted in the "nothing new,just repeating the old" file) provoked such a long response. :-D

Whenever I see this type of discussions, I feel a bit conflicted. On one hand, it is definitely true that learning languages is a wonderful brain exercise, and such a brain exercise does definitely have positive influence on our health, even as one of the ways to prevent dementias. However, the usual shortcut that learning a language=brain protection, that simply doesn't fit well with me. It seems a bit dumb that many people mention this as the main reason to learn languages (as if speaking other languages was totally worthless otherwise), and it's like "oh, your fault you got a dementia, you hadn't learnt a language". Nope, dementias are so complex, that the only people that are really to blame for their dementias are those, who have lead an obviously horrible life style leading to vascular or mixed origin dementia, or a specific condition (like the Korsakoff syndrome of the alcoolics). And as life is unfair, many of those with a horrible life style actually get neurologically ill later than many people, who have commited no bigger or unusual faults in this area.
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