Jubin Abutalebi

Vita-Salute San Raffaele University | UniSR · Faculty of Psychology

Background/Objectives: A neurobiological framework of bi- or multilingual neurocognitive development must consider the following: (i) longitudinal behavioral and neural measures; (ii) brain developmental constraints across structure and function; and (iii) the development of global multilingual competence in a homogeneous social environment. In thi...

Currently available data show mixed results as to whether the processing of emotional information has the same characteristics in the native (L1) as in the second language (L2) of bilinguals. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to shed light on the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying bilinguals’ emotional process...

Introduction Anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive, low-cost and environment-friendly brain neuromodulation technique that increases cortical excitability. In post-stroke aphasia, the role of the right hemisphere in language recovery remains debated. In this preliminary study, we aimed to investigate the efficacy o...

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic impacted public health and our lifestyles, leading to new social adaptations such as quarantine, social distancing, and facial masks. Face masks, covering extended facial zones, hamper our ability to extract relevant socio-emotional information from others’ faces. In this fMRI study, we investigated how face masks...

To better explain various neurocognitive consequences of bilingualism, recent investigations have adopted continuous measures of bilingual experience, as opposed to binary bi/monolin-gual distinctions. However, few studies have considered whether bilingualism's effects on cog-nition are modulated by the linguistic distance (LD) between L1 and L2, a...

Bilingualism is a ubiquitous global phenomenon. Beyond being a language experience, bilingualism also entails a social experience, and it interacts with development and learning, with cognitive and neural consequences across the lifespan. The authors of this volume are world renowned experts across several subdisciplines including linguistics, deve...

The umbrella term cognitive reserve-enhancing factors refers to those experiential and lifestyle factors (such as intellectual activities, regular physical exercise, healthy nutrition, educational attainment, etc.) that may help individuals to compensate for age-related neural deterioration, thus enabling them to maintain relatively stable cognitiv...

Objective: To examine existing evidence on the effect of bilingualism on cognitive outcomes in the stroke population. Introduction: Stroke is associated with an increased risk of vascular cognitive impairment. Bilingualism promotes cognitive reserve and resilience through the effect of language switching on the cognitive control systems and is sugg...

Reading activates a region within the left lateral occipitotemporal sulcus (OTS) known as the 'visual word form area' (VWFA). While several studies have investigated the impact of reading on brain structure through neuroplastic mechanisms, it has been recently suggested that individual differences in the pattern of the posterior OTS may predict rea...

Inhibitory control is the capacity to withhold or suppress a thought or action intentionally. The anterior Midcingulate Cortex (aMCC) participates in response inhibition, a proxy measure of inhibitory control. Recent research suggests that response inhibition is modulated by individual variability in the aMCC sulcal morphology. However, no study ha...

The moral foreign language effect (MFLE) describes how people’s decisions may change when a moral dilemma is presented in either their native (NL) or foreign language (FL). Growing attention is being directed to unpacking what aspects of bilingualism may influence the MFLE, though with mixed or inconclusive results. The current study aims to bridge...

The neurological notion of “reserve” arises from an individually observable dissociation between brain health and cognitive status. According to the cognitive reserve hypothesis, high-reserve individuals experience functional compensation for neural atrophy and, thus, are able to maintain relatively stable cognitive functioning with no or smaller-t...

This paper investigates the production of Persian–English bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) of the type [VERB+VERB]. In this type of code-switched structure, a lexical verb from the donor language English is combined with a light verb from the native language Persian. We tested the hypothesis that in Persian–English BCVs English verbs occupy the nomi...

This paper investigates the production of Persian–English bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) of the type [VERB+VERB]. In this type of code-switched structure, a lexical verb from the donor language English is combined with a light verb from the native language Persian. We tested the hypothesis that in Persian–English BCVs English verbs occupy the nomi...

As a result of advances in healthcare, the worldwide average life expectancy is steadily increasing. However, this positive trend has societal and individual costs, not least because greater life expectancy is linked to higher incidence of age-related diseases, such as dementia. Over the past few decades, research has isolated various protective “h...

In the present meta-analysis, we investigated the robustness and the magnitude of the Foreign Language Effect (FLE) – that is, the putative effect of language context (native versus foreign language) on decision-making. We also investigated whether the FLE is moderated by language experience – measured by second language age of acquisition and prof...

Computational morphometry of magnetic resonance images represents a powerful tool for studying macroscopic differences in human brains. In the present study (N participants = 829), we combined different techniques and measures of brain morphology to investigate one of the most compelling topics in neuroscience: sexual dimorphism in human brain stru...

In the present meta-analysis, we investigated the robustness and the magnitude of the Foreign Language Effect (FLE), that is, the putative effect of language context (native versus foreign language) on decision-making. We also investigated whether the FLE is moderated by language experience-measured by second language age of acquisition and profici...

Lifelong bilingualism is associated with delayed dementia onset, suggesting a protective effect on the brain. Here, we aim to study the effects of lifelong bilingualism as a dichotomous and continuous phenomenon, on brain metabolism and connectivity in individuals with Alzheimer's dementia. Ninety-eight patients with Alzheimer's dementia (56 monoli...

This review aims at clarifying the concept of first language attrition by tracing its limits, identifying its phenomenological and contextual constraints, discussing controversies associated with its definition, and suggesting potential directions for future research. We start by reviewing different definitions of attrition as well as associated in...

Bilingualism is a natural laboratory for studying whether the brain's structural connectome is influenced by different aspects of language experience. However, evidence on how distinct components of bilingual experience may contribute to structural brain adaptations is mixed. The lack of consistency, however, may depend, at least in part, on method...

Bilingualism represents a distinctive way to investigate the interplay between brain and behaviour, and an elegant model to study the role of environmental factors in shaping this relationship. Past neuroimaging research has mainly focused on how bilingualism influences brain structure, and how eventually the brain accommodates a second language. I...

Learning and learning to regulate more than one language is shown to have an impact on the structural connectivity of the brain in networks related to language processing and executive control. The available evidence remains however variable in terms of the occurrence, localization and extent of these effects. Variability likely depends on the fact...

There is an ongoing debate on potential neuroprotective effects of bilingualism against cognitive decline during healthy aging. In this paper, we consider the neural and cognitive mechanisms through which these protective effects may operate. We review the evidence suggesting that bilingualism can act as a booster of neuroplasticity and/or as a bra...

Objective: To evaluate the clinical characteristics and rehabilitation management of patients who undergo amputation for COVID-19-associated coagulopathy. Methods: Clinical and laboratory data for 3 patients were analysed and their rehabilitative management discussed. Results: The medical records of 3 patients who had undergone amputation due...

Background: The dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC) is a key network hub for cognitive control and environmental adaptation. Previous studies have shown that task-based functional activity in this area is constrained by individual differences in sulcal pattern, a morphologic feature of cortex anatomy determined during fetal life and stable thr...

There is currently no agreement on which factor modulates most effectively and enduringly brain plasticity in bilingual individuals. Grouping heterogeneous linguistic profiles under a dichotomous condition (bilingualism versus monolingualism) may obscure critical aspects of language experience underlying neural changes, thus leading to variable and...

Notwithstanding rising interest, a coherent picture of the brain's representation of two languages has not yet been achieved. In the present meta-analysis we analysed a large number of functional neuroimaging studies focusing on language processing in bilinguals. We used activation likelihood estimation (ALE) to enucleate activation areas involved...

Heritage languages, infants’ language recognition, and artificial grammars for bilingualism research - Jubin Abutalebi, Harald Clahsen

Neuroimaging evidence suggests that bilingualism may act as a source of neural plasticity. However, prior structural work has mostly focused on bilingualism-induced alterations in gray matter volume and white matter tract microstructure, with additional effects related to other structural indices that might have remained undetected. The degree of c...

The cognitive architecture of human language processing has been studied for decades, but using computational modeling for such studies is a relatively recent topic. Indeed, computational approaches to language processing have become increasingly popular in our field, mainly due to advances in computational modeling techniques and the availability...

In this piece, we honor the work of Albert Costa. His work focused on how bilinguals manage two languages, the brain mechanisms involved, and the ways in which language and emotion are related. We end by discussing ways in which his work will frame research in the field going forward.

The use of socially opprobrious words (taboo words) is a cross-cultural phenomenon occurring between in- dividuals from almost all social extractions. The neurocognitive correlates of using taboo words in the native language (L1) as compared to their use in a second (L2) language are largely unknown. We used fMRI to in- vestigate the processing of...

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a disorder with a dramatic impact on both the individual and society. Besides severe weight loss, excessive physical exercise and cognitive disturbances can be present in patients with AN as primary symptoms of the pathology or as secondary effects induced by physical and metabolic alterations. Mechanistic research in this...

This chapter offers a narrative review of the most relevant results so far achieved in the field of the cerebral basis of multilingualism using positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The impact of multilingual experience on the functional neuroanatomy of language is discussed with special reference to t...

Introduction: Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) in older adults are an early risk indicator for Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia, making older adults with SCD a target population for proactive interventions. The aim of this study was to determine if perceptual-cognitive training (PCT) can serve as a proactive intervention and enhance...

One of the best-known claims from language acquisition research is that the capacity to learn languages is constrained by maturational changes, with particular time windows (aka ‘critical’ or ‘sensitive’ periods) better suited for language learning than others. Evidence for the critical period hypothesis (CPH) comes from a number of sources demonst...

Whether bilingualism acts positively against neurocognitive decline is currently a topic of intense debate. Although some reasons for it might be ideological, variability in sampling procedures and experimental design represent potential sources of inconsistency among studies. In this paper, we contend that bilingualism renders the extra-years of l...

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) are involved in conflict detection and conflict resolution, respectively. Here, we investigate how lifelong bilingualism induces neuroplasticity to these structures by employing a novel analysis of behavioural performance. We correlated grey matter volume (GMV) in se...

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a key structure implicated in the regulation of cognitive control (CC). Previous studies suggest that variability in the ACC sulcal pattern—a neurodevelopmental marker unaffected by maturation or plasticity after birth—is associated with intersubject differences in CC performance. Here, we investigated whether...

Evidence that bilingualism protects against age-related neurocognitive decline is mixed. One relatively consistent finding is that bilingual seniors have greater grey matter volume (GMV) in regions implicated in executive control (EC) and language processing. Here, we compare the neuroplastic effects of bilingual experience on the EC network of you...

Reports of an advantage of bilingualism on brain structure in young adult participants are inconsistent. Abutalebi et al. (2012) reported more efficient monitoring of conflict during the Flanker task in young bilinguals compared to young monolingual speakers. The present study compared young adult (mean age = 24) Cantonese-English bilinguals in Hon...

Acquiring and speaking a second language increases demand on the processes of language control for bilingual as compared to monolingual speakers. Language control for bilingual speakers involves the ability to keep the two languages separated to avoid interference and to select one language or the other in a given conversational context. This abili...

For everyday communication, bilingual speakers need to face the complex task of rapidly choosing the most appropriate language given the context, maintaining this choice over the current communicative act, and shielding lexical selection from competing alternatives from non-target languages. Yet, speech production of bilinguals is typically flawles...

A basic issue in the neuroscienceof language is whether the neural representation of L2 converges with that of L1. In this chapter we review data from functional and structural neuroimaging studies focusing on phonological, grammatical and lexico-semantic processing in bilinguals. Functional data indicate that L1 and L2 are processed through the sa...

Speaking more than one language is associated with neurocognitive benefits in seniors (Alladi et al. 2013). Few studies however have tested this hypothesis directly by comparing bilingual seniors who vary in chronological age. We report a Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) study showing cumulative effects of age on grey matter volume (GMV) in brain stru...

Research has shown that linguistic functions in the bilingual brain are subserved by similar neural circuits as in monolinguals, but with extra-activity associated with cognitive and attentional control. Although a role for the right cerebellum in multilingual language processing has recently been acknowledged, a potential role of the left cerebell...

The role of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in modulating the effect of bilingual experience on cognitive control has been reported at both functional and structural neural levels. Individual differences in the ACC sulcal patterns have been recently correlated with cognitive control efficiency in monolinguals. We aimed to investigate whether di...

DTI is an established method to study cerebral white-matter microstructure. Two established measures of DTI are fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) and both differ for bilingual and monolingual speakers. Less is known about differences in two other measures called radial (RD) and axial diffusivity (AD). We report differences in mea...

Efficient comprehension of sentences requires rapidly and continuously accessing and integrating different sources of information in real time. Psycholinguists have developed detailed models and theories to account for the processes involved in on-line sentence comprehension as well as a number of sophisticated experimental designs for studying the...

Bilingual experience can delay cognitive decline during aging. A general hypothesis is that the executive control system of bilinguals faces an increased load due to controlling two languages, and this increased load results in a more “tuned brain” that eventually creates a neural reserve. Here we explored whether such a neuroprotective effect is i...

Significance Recent epidemiological studies report that lifelong bilingualism may delay dementia onset. However, the underlying neural mechanism of these protective effects is largely unknown. Using fluorodeoxyglucose and PET to investigate brain metabolism and neural connectivity in individuals with Alzheimer’s dementia, we unravel the neural mech...

The question of how much language a child can learn by modelling the patterns she is exposed to in the environment represents an age-old and persistent controversy in language-acquisition research. On a number of occasions researchers felt confident enough to claim that the controversy had been resolved, in favour of their own viewpoint, of course....

Experimental and other empirical research on language is faced with the fact that language performance exhibits a high degree of variability at all linguistic levels. Variability is found across languages, across speech communities within one language, across individuals within one speech community and even within the same individual. Bilingual lan...

Elderly bilingual speakers exhibit a response time (RT) advantage on tests of executive function such as the Flanker task. There is, however, a lack of consensus regarding the cognitive mechanisms underlying this bilingual advantage. We analysed Flanker task performance from elderly bilingual (N ¼ 29, age range ¼ 55e75) and monolingual (N ¼ 27, age...

During picture naming, the ease with which humans generate words is dependent upon the context in which they are named. For instances, naming previously presented items results in facilitation. Instead, naming a picture semantically related to previous items displays persistent interference effects (i.e., cumulative semantic interference, CSI). The...

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is a clinical condition characterized by memory impairment in the absence of any other cognitive impairment and is commonly associated with high conversion to Alzheimer's disease. Recent evidence shows that executive functions and selective attention mechanisms could also be impaired in aMCI. In this study,...

Speaking more than one language demands a language control system that allows bilinguals to correctly use the intended language adjusting for possible interference from the non-target language. Understanding how the brain orchestrates the control of language has been a major focus of neuroimaging research on bilingualism and was central to our orig...

Idiopathic Hypersomnia (IH) is a rare sleep disorder characterised by excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) that leads to invalidating daytime consequences. Till now the treatment of IH has mirrored that of sleepiness in narcolepsy, and it is mainly focused on symptoms' management. We employed an anodal transcranic Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) tr...

Bimodal bilingualism refers to a type of bilingualism that employs two different input-output channels, one involving spoken language and the other involving sign language. Until the second half of the twentieth century, sign language was not recognized as a fully-fledged language and there was very little research devoted to bilingual sign languag...

Aphasia in bilingual patients is a therapeutic challenge since both languages can be impacted by the same lesion. Language control has been suggested to play an important role in the recovery of first (L1) and second (L2) language in bilingual aphasia following stroke. To test this hypothesis, we collected behavioral measures of language production...

In order to support data included in the main text, additional data is provided in Supplementary Material in three parts. Supplementary data 1 includes detailed information on patients' scores in General Aphasia Evaluation and Picture naming task. Supplementary data 2 includes information on control subjects as well as the results of DCM analysis o...