The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing
Abstract The bilingual experience may place special cognitive demands on speakers and has been argued to lead to improvements in domain-general executive abilities, like cognitive control and working memory. Such improvements have been argued for based on both behavioral and brain imaging evidence....
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MIT Press - Journals
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139848 |
| _version_ | 1826210136079728640 |
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| author | Malik-Moraleda, Saima Cucu, Theodor Lipkin, Benjamin Fedorenko, Evelina |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Malik-Moraleda, Saima Cucu, Theodor Lipkin, Benjamin Fedorenko, Evelina |
| author_sort | Malik-Moraleda, Saima |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Abstract
The bilingual experience may place special cognitive demands on speakers and has been argued to lead to improvements in domain-general executive abilities, like cognitive control and working memory. Such improvements have been argued for based on both behavioral and brain imaging evidence. However, the empirical landscape is complex and ridden with controversy. Here we attempt to shed light on this question through an fMRI investigation of relatively large, relatively homogeneous, and carefully matched samples of early balanced bilinguals (n = 55) and monolinguals (n = 54), using robust, previously validated individual-level markers of neural activity in the domain-general multiple demand (MD) network, which supports executive functions. We find that the bilinguals, compared to the monolinguals, show significantly stronger neural responses to an executive (spatial working memory) task, and a larger difference between a harder and an easier condition of the task, across the MD network. These stronger neural responses are accompanied by better behavioral performance on the working memory task. We further show that the bilingual-vs.-monolingual difference in neural responses is not ubiquitous across the brain as no group difference in magnitude is observed in primary visual areas, which also respond to the task. Although the neural group difference in the MD network appears robust, it remains difficult to causally link it to bilingual experience specifically. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:43:43Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/139848 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:43:43Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | MIT Press - Journals |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1398482024-03-26T18:42:16Z The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing Malik-Moraleda, Saima Cucu, Theodor Lipkin, Benjamin Fedorenko, Evelina Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Abstract The bilingual experience may place special cognitive demands on speakers and has been argued to lead to improvements in domain-general executive abilities, like cognitive control and working memory. Such improvements have been argued for based on both behavioral and brain imaging evidence. However, the empirical landscape is complex and ridden with controversy. Here we attempt to shed light on this question through an fMRI investigation of relatively large, relatively homogeneous, and carefully matched samples of early balanced bilinguals (n = 55) and monolinguals (n = 54), using robust, previously validated individual-level markers of neural activity in the domain-general multiple demand (MD) network, which supports executive functions. We find that the bilinguals, compared to the monolinguals, show significantly stronger neural responses to an executive (spatial working memory) task, and a larger difference between a harder and an easier condition of the task, across the MD network. These stronger neural responses are accompanied by better behavioral performance on the working memory task. We further show that the bilingual-vs.-monolingual difference in neural responses is not ubiquitous across the brain as no group difference in magnitude is observed in primary visual areas, which also respond to the task. Although the neural group difference in the MD network appears robust, it remains difficult to causally link it to bilingual experience specifically. 2022-02-04T16:03:29Z 2022-02-04T16:03:29Z 2021-12-23 2022-02-04T15:53:57Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2641-4368 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139848 Citation: Malik-Moraleda, S., Cucu, T., Lipkin, B., & Fedorenko, E. (2021). The domain-general multiple demand network is more active in early balanced bilinguals than monolinguals during executive processing. Neurobiology of Language, 2(4), 647–664 en 10.1162/nol_a_00058 Neurobiology of Language Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf MIT Press - Journals MIT Press |
| spellingShingle | Malik-Moraleda, Saima Cucu, Theodor Lipkin, Benjamin Fedorenko, Evelina The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing |
| title | The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing |
| title_full | The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing |
| title_fullStr | The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing |
| title_short | The Domain-General Multiple Demand Network Is More Active in Early Balanced Bilinguals Than Monolinguals During Executive Processing |
| title_sort | domain general multiple demand network is more active in early balanced bilinguals than monolinguals during executive processing |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139848 |
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