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Article published In:
Bi-/Multilingualism and the Declining Brain
Edited by Christos Pliatsikas, Ana Inés Ansaldo and Toms Voits
[Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 11:4] 2021
► pp. 551–577

Multiple sclerosis and bilingualism

Some initial findings

| Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Science, University of Reading
| Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Gregorio Marañón
| University of Konstanz
| School of Psychology and Clinical Language Science, University of Reading
| School of Psychology and Clinical Language Science, University of Reading | Facultad de Lenguas y Educación Universidad Nebrija
| Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Gregorio Marañón
| Neurology Department, Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón
| Neurology Department, Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón
| Neurology Department, Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón
| Neurology Department, Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón
| Neurology Department, Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón

It has been suggested that bilingualism is beneficial for executive control and could have positive long-term effects by delaying the onset of symptoms of degenerative diseases. This research investigates, for the first time, the impact of bilingualism on executive control (monitoring and inhibitory control) in individuals with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a neurodegenerative disease which commonly causes deficiencies in the cognitive system. Bilingual and monolingual adults, with and without an MS diagnosis, performed a flanker task with two degrees of monitoring demands (high monitoring vs. low monitoring). Results showed that bilingual MS patients had inhibitory control and monitoring abilities that were similar to healthy bilingual controls. In contrast, monolingual MS patients showed similar inhibitory control but significantly worse monitoring abilities compared to monolingual healthy controls. We propose that the similar behaviour between bilingual groups suggests that bilingualism might counteract cognitive deficits related to MS, especially with respect to monitoring. The high monitoring cost observed in monolingual patients seems related to underlying deficits in monitoring and possibly switching, executive control abilities commonly impaired in MS patients from early stages. Our findings provide some preliminary evidence for the cognitive reserve hypothesis in bilingual MS patients.

Keywords: atypical bilingualism, Multiple Sclerosis, flanker task, bilingual, monolingual
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The present study
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2The flanker task
      • Monitoring load
      • Monitoring cost
      • Conflict effect
    • 3.3Analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Monitoring load
    • 4.2Monitoring cost
    • 4.3Conflict effect (the inhibitory control)
  • 5.Discussion
    • Monitoring mechanism
    • Inhibitory control
  • References
Published online: 16 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.18037.ave
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Pliatsikas, Christos, Ana Inés Ansaldo & Toms Voits
2020. Bilingualism and the declining brain. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism DOI logo

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