Processing demands upon cognitive, linguistic, and articulatory functions promote grey matter plasticity in the adult multilingual brain: Insights from simultaneous interpreters.

Until now, considerable effort has been made to determine structural brain characteristics related to exceptional multilingual skills. However, at least one important question has not yet been satisfactorily addressed in the previous literature, namely whether and to which extent the processing dema...

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Publicado en:Cortex: A Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System & Behavior Vol. 54; pp. 179 - 190
Autores principales: Elmer, Stefan, Hänggi, Jürgen, Jäncke, Lutz
Formato: Journal Article
Publicado: Masson SPA 2014 May
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: 2014 May
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        10.1016/j.cortex.2014.02.014
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        atl: Processing demands upon cognitive, linguistic, and articulatory functions promote grey matter plasticity in the adult multilingual brain: Insights from simultaneous interpreters.
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          Elmer, Stefan
          Hänggi, Jürgen
          Jäncke, Lutz
        affil: Division Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: s.elmer@psychologie.uzh.ch.
      sug:
        subj:
          Brain Physiology
          Cognition
          Gray Matter Physiology
          Multilingualism
          Neuronal Plasticity Physiology
          Speech Physiology
          Adult
          Brain Mapping
          Female
          Image Processing, Computer Assisted
          Magnetic Resonance Imaging
          Male
          Middle Age
          Problem Solving
          Adult: 19-44 years
          Middle Aged: 45-64 years
          Female
          Male
      ab: Until now, considerable effort has been made to determine structural brain characteristics related to exceptional multilingual skills. However, at least one important question has not yet been satisfactorily addressed in the previous literature, namely whether and to which extent the processing demands upon cognitive, linguistic, and articulatory functions may promote grey matter plasticity in the adult multilingual brain. Based on the premise that simultaneous interpretation is a highly demanding linguistic task that places strong demands on executive and articulatory functions, here we compared grey matter volumes between professional simultaneous interpreters (SI) and multilingual control subjects. Thereby, we focused on a specific set of a-priori defined bilateral brain regions that have previously been shown to support neurocognitional aspects of language control and linguistic functions in the multilingual brain. These regions are the cingulate gyrus, caudate nucleus, frontal operculum (pars triangularis and opercularis), inferior parietal lobe (IPL) (supramarginal and angular gyrus), and the insula. As a main result, we found reduced grey matter volumes in professional SI, compared to multilingual controls, in the left middle-anterior cingulate gyrus, bilateral pars triangularis, left pars opercularis, bilateral middle part of the insula, and in the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG). Interestingly, grey matter volume in left pars triangularis, right pars opercularis, middle-anterior cingulate gyrus, and in the bilateral caudate nucleus was negatively correlated with the cumulative number of interpreting hours. Hence, we provide first evidence for an expertise-related grey matter architecture that may reflect a composite of brain characteristics that were still present before interpreting training and training-related changes.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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