In our last posts we have shown the advantages of being bilingual in children. However, what happens to bilinguals’ brain when they age? Several studies have claimed that bilingualism increases resilience to losing brain capacity. Recently, Perani and her colleagues carried out an experiment in which they compared patients with Alzheimer’s, both monolingual and bilingual.

The results revealed that bilinguals were better at ‘verbal short-term memory and long-term memory’. In addition, monolinguals had more advanced signs of disease. On the other hand, bilinguals were around five years older. In any case, other experts like Duñabeitia claim that more longitudinal studies are needed in order to get clearer conclusions.

To read the original article visit: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/bilingualism-may-slow-alzheimers-progression-but-its-not-simple/