Current research suggests that modifiable lifestyle factors can enhance the “cognitive
reserve” and protect against age related cognitive decline. Hence, bilingualism, which is
thought to improve executive functions, has recently been suggested to help patients
coping with large brain damage before presenting symptoms, and therefore, delay the
onset of dementia. The current project aims to provide a further understanding of the
effect of bilingualism on the cognitive, behavioural, and neuroimaging ...
Current research suggests that modifiable lifestyle factors can enhance the “cognitive
reserve” and protect against age related cognitive decline. Hence, bilingualism, which is
thought to improve executive functions, has recently been suggested to help patients
coping with large brain damage before presenting symptoms, and therefore, delay the
onset of dementia. The current project aims to provide a further understanding of the
effect of bilingualism on the cognitive, behavioural, and neuroimaging features of the
behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Thirty monolingual bvFTD,
twenty-six bilingual bvFTD, and fifty-six age and education matched normal controls
(NC) underwent neuropsychological and neurological examinations, and a high-quality
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) by specialists in the Memory Unit at Hospital de la
Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Linear regression models were conducted to assess the effect of
bilingualism on the behavioural and cognitive measurements. Voxel-wise analyses were
performed to further test differences in grey matter (GM) volumes between monolingual
and bilingual patients. Our results did not evidence that bilingual bvFTD patients have a
later age of onset or age at diagnosis than monolinguals patients. Moreover, bilingualism
was not associated with differences in cognitive and behavioural performances, even
when controlling for disease duration. Finally, neuroimaging analyses showed GM
atrophy in the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal regions in bvFTD patients. However,
we did not find significant differences in brain volume between bilinguals and
monolinguals patients, even when controlling for the level of cognitive impairment.
Overall, this study does not support that bilingualism has a positive effect in bvFTD.
These results may indicate a bias of positivity in the current literature concerning
bilingualism and dementia, and requires some additional study.
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