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Ageing and Bilingualism Effects on Fluid Intelligence: Evidence from Behavioural and Structural MRI Measures
Poster Session C, Thursday, October 1, 10:45 am - 12:45 pm, Wangari Maathai
Xinyu Liu1, Christos Pliatsikas1, Umit Aydin1; 1University of Reading
Ageing is associated with progressive cognitive decline, particularly in domains related to executive functioning, reasoning, and attentional control, alongside reductions in brain volume [1]. Lifelong bilingualism has been proposed as a factor that may help protect against age-related decline in cognition and brain integrity [2]. However, the interaction between the effects of ageing and bilingualism, at both behavioural and brain structural levels, remains debated. The current study examined 238 bilinguals and 152 monolinguals (all UK-based) from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (CamCAN) dataset [3] (age range: 18-88 years) on their performance on a test tapping fluid intelligence (the Cattell test) and the cortical thickness and volumetric measures of the regions implicated in these skills. Subcortical structures like the caudate and thalamus as well as key frontoparietal cortical areas, including middle frontal gyrus (MFG), superior frontal gyrus (SFG), inferior parietal lobule (IPL), superior parietal lobule (SPL), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) , and precuneus (PCu), were analysed. Behavioural analyses revealed significant age-related decline in fluid intelligence performance, with bilinguals exhibiting a slower rate of decline compared with monolinguals. Preliminary structural analyses revealed age-related decline across most regions of interest. In addition, age-by-bilingualism interactions were observed in SPL thickness and thalamus volume, suggesting slower age-related structural decline in bilinguals relative to monolinguals in selected regions. These findings highlight a significant behavioural benefit in fluid intelligence for bilinguals across lifespan, alongside structural age-by-bilingualism interactions observed in selected cortical and subcortical regions. The structural interaction effects align with the behavioural findings, suggesting that bilingualism may influence age-related cognitive and neural trajectories, particularly in later life. The results further highlight the importance of examining bilingualism across broad age ranges and sufficiently large samples, as bilingualism-related effects may become more apparent later in life. 1. Anderton BH. Ageing of the brain. Mech Ageing Dev. 2002;123(7):811-817. 2. Gold BT, Kim C, Johnson NF, Kryscio RJ, Smith CD. Lifelong bilingualism maintains neural efficiency for cognitive control in aging. J Neurosci. 2013;33(2):387-396. 3. Shafto MA, Tyler LK, Dixon M, Taylor JR, Rowe JB, Cusack R, et al. The Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) study protocol: a cross-sectional, lifespan, multidisciplinary examination of healthy cognitive ageing. BMC Neurol. 2014;14(1):204.
Topic Areas: Multilingualism,