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Centralization of Language in the Brain
Language acquisition in multilingual individuals is contingent on two factors: age of the language acquisition and proficiency. Specialization is centered in the Perisylvian cortex of the left hemisphere. Various regions of both the right and left hemisphere activate during language production. Multilingual individuals consistently demonstrate similar activation patterns in the brain when using either one of the two or more languages they fluently know. Age of acquiring the second-or-higher language, and proficiency of use determine what specific brain regions and pathways activate when using, thinking or speaking, the language. Contrast to those who acquired their multiple languages at different points in their life, those who acquire multiple languages when young, and at virtually the same time, show similar activations in parts of Broca’s area and left inferior frontal lobe. If the second-or-higher language is acquired later in life, specifically after the critical period, the language becomes centralized in a different part of Broca’s area than native language and other languages learned when young.

Brain plasticity in multilingualism
A greater density of grey matter in the inferior parietal cortex is present in multilingual individuals. It has been found that multilingualism affects the structure, and essentially, the cytoarchitecture of the brain. Learning multiple languages re-structures the brain and some researchers argue that it increases the brain’s capacity for plasticity. Much of these differences in brain structures in multilinguals may be genetic at the core. Consensus is still muddled; it may be a mixture of both—experiential (acquiring languages during life) and genetic (predisposition to brain plasticity)..

Aphasia in multilingualism
An abundance of insight about language storage in the brain comes from studying bilingual/ mulilingual individuals afflicted with a form of aphasia. The symptoms and severity of aphasia in bilinguals/ mulitlinguals depend on how many languages the individual knows, what order they have them stored in the brain, how frequently they use each one, and how proficient they are in using those languages. Two primary theoretical approaches to studying and viewing bilingual/ multilingual aphasics exist—the localizationalist approach and the dynamic approach. The localizationalist approach views different languages as stored in different regions of the brain; therefore, is the reason why bilingual/ multilingual aphasics may lose one language they know, but not the other(s). The dynamical theory approach suggests that the language system is supervised by a dynamic equilibrium between the existing language capabilities and the constant alteration and adaptation to the communicative requirements of the environment. The dynamic approach views the representation and control aspects of the language system as compromised as a result of brain damage to the brain’s language regions. The dynamic approach offers a satisfactory explanation for the various recovery times of each of the languages the aphasic has had impaired or lost because of the brain damage. Recovery of languages varies across aphasic patients. Some may recover all lost or impaired languages simultaneously. For some, one language is recovered before the others. In others, an involuntary mix of languages occurs in the recovery process; the aphasic would intermix words from the various languages he/she knows when speaking.

Pet scan studies on Bimodal Individuals
Neurological research on Bimodal individuals—those who speak one oral language and one sign language—has been carried out. Pet scans from these studies show that there is a separate region in the brain for working memory related to sign language production and use. These studies also find that Bimodal individuals use different areas of the right hemisphere depending on whether if they are speaking using verbal language or gesticulating using sign-language. Studies with bimodal bilinguals have also provided insight into the tip of the tongue phenomenon and into patterns of neural activity when recognizing facial expressions.

The Executive Control System’s Role in Preventing Cross Talk
There are sophisticated mechanisms to prevent cross talk in brains where more than one language is stored. The executive control system might be implicated to prevent one language from interfering with another in multilinguals.The executive control system is responsible for processes that are sometimes referred to as executive functions, and among others includes supervisory attentional system, or cognitive control. Despite that most research on the executive control system pertains to nonverbal tasks, there is some evidence that the system might be involved in resolving and ordering the conflict generated by the competing languages stored in the mulitlingual’s brain. During speech production there is a constant need to channel attention to the appropriate word associated with the concept, congruent with the language being used. The word must be placed in the appropriate phonological and morphological context. Multilniguals constantly utilize the general executive control system to resolve interference/conflicts among the known languages, enhancing the system’s functional performance, even on nonverbal tasks. In studies, multilingual subjects of all ages, showed overall enhanced executive control abilities. This may indicate that the multilingual experience leads to a transfer of skill from the verbal to the nonverbal. There is no one specific domain of language modulation in the general executive control system, as far as studies reveal. Studies show that the speed with which multilingual subjects perform tasks, with-and-without mediation required to resolve language-use conflict, is better in bilingual monolingual subjects.

Health Benefits of Multilingualism and Bilingualism
Researcher Ellen Bialystok examined the effect of multilingualism on Alzheimer’s disease and found that it delays its onset by about 4 years. The researcher’s study found that those who spoke more than two languages acquired Alzheimer’s disease at a later time than speakers of a single language. Interestingly, the study found that the more languages the multilingual knows, the later the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Both bilingualism and multilingualism aid in the building up of cognitive reserves in the brain; these cognitive reserves force the brain to work harder—they themselves, restructure the brain. Multilingualism and bilingualism lead to greater efficiency of use in the brain, and organize the brain to be more efficient and conservative in using energy. More research is required to determine whether if learning another language later in life has the same protective effects; nonetheless, it is evident from the variety of studies performed on the effects of multilingualism and bilingualism on the brain, that learning and knowing multiple languages sets the stage for a cognitive healthy life.