Apart from the several advantages that being bilingual provides, bilingualism can also be beneficial for our brain! Recent research from the University of Montréal has shown that being bilingual makes the brain more efficient and economical. According to the experiment carried out by Dr Ansaldo, bilinguals select relevant information and ignore information that can distract from a task. She further adds that this advantage can ‘help with the effects of cognitive aging’.

In order to carry out the experiment, they selected a group of bilingual and monolingual senior citizens. Participants had to perform a number of tasks in which they had to focus on visual information while ignoring spatial information. The researchers found that bilinguals had higher connectivity between visual processing areas than monolinguals, which indicates that bilingual brains are more efficient and economical since they use fewer regions of the brain to complete the task.

To read the original article visit: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bilingual-speak-two-languages-brain-more-efficient-combat-cognitive-ageing-study-universit-de-montr-a7519026.html