Evidence for cognitive and brain reserve supporting executive control of memory in lifelong bilinguals

NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

卷:160

Article

Macbeth, Alessandra^1,2  Higby, Eve³  Atagi, Natsuki⁴  Chiarello, Christine² 

[1] Azusa Pacific Univ, Dept Psychol, Azusa, CA 91702 USA

[2] Univ Calif Riverside, Dept Psychol, Riverside, CA 92521 USA

[3] Calif State Univ East Bay, Dept Speech Language & Hearing Sci, Hayward, CA 94542 USA

[4] Calif State Univ Fullerton, Dept Child & Adolescent Studies, Fullerton, CA 92831 USA

关键词: Bilingualism;    Resistance to proactive interference;    Executive control;    Cognitive reserve;    Brain reserve;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107958

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Recent bilingualism research attempts to understand whether continually controlling multiple languages provides domain-general benefits to other aspects of cognition. Yet little attention has been given to whether this extends to resistance to proactive interference (PI), which involves the filtering of irrelevant memory traces in order to focus attention on relevant to-be-remembered information. The present study sought to determine whether bilingualism provides benefits to resistance to PI performance and brain structure in regions supporting executive control of memory. Eighty-two younger and older adult participants, half English monolinguals and half highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals, completed directed forgetting and release from PI tasks and underwent an MRI scan that measured cortical volume, thickness, and white matter integrity. While behavioral performance between bilinguals and monolinguals did not differ, bilinguals displayed thinner cortex in brain regions related to resistance to PI, providing evidence for cognitive reserve, and showed positive relationships between white matter integrity and resistance to PI performance, indicative of brain reserve. This study is the first to demonstrate cognitive reserve and brain reserve in different brain structure indices within the same healthy participants and suggests that bilingualism supports important structural relationships between regions necessary for executive control of memory.

【 授权许可】

Free