reineke wrote:Brain Structure Predicts the Learning of Foreign Speech Sounds
http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... ech_Sounds
"Previous work has shown a relationship between parietal lobe anatomy and nonnative speech sound learning...
These results suggest that left auditory cortex WM anatomy, which likely reflects auditory processing efficiency, partly predicts individual differences in an aspect of language learning that relies on rapid temporal processing. It also appears that a global displacement of components of a right hemispheric language network, possibly reflecting individual differences in the functional anatomy and lateralization of language processing, is predictive of speech sound learning."
Born with an Ear for Dialects? Structural Plasticity in the Expert Phonetician Brain
"Are experts born with particular predispositions, or are they made through experience? We examined brain structure in expert phoneticians, individuals who are highly trained to analyze and transcribe speech. We found a positive correlation between the size of left pars opercularis and years of phonetic transcription training experience, illustrating how learning may affect brain structure. Phoneticians were also more likely to have multiple or split left transverse gyri in the auditory cortex than nonexpert controls, and the amount of phonetic transcription training did not predict auditory cortex morphology. The transverse gyri are thought to be established in utero; our results thus suggest that this gross morphological difference may have existed before the onset of phonetic training, and that its presence confers an advantage of sufficient magnitude to affect career choices. These results suggest complementary influences of domain-specific predispositions and experience-dependent brain malleability, influences that likely interact in determining not only how experience shapes the human brain but also why some individuals become engaged by certain fields of expertise."
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... cian_Brain
Beyond bilingualism
"The multilingual brain implements mechanisms that serve to select the appropriate language as a function of the communicative environment. Engaging these mechanisms on a regular basis appears to have consequences for brain structure and function."
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ate_volume
This is pretty hard to prove as a causation. You need to have a study from childhood with serial CT scans in two groups.