Voxel-based Morphometry MRI Primary Study Of Brain Grey Matter Between Tibetan Bilinguals And Chinese Monoliguals

Objective: Humans have the ability to master two or more languages,the previous researches show that bilingual or multilingual acquisition will lead to changes in brain function,but the influence of bilingual or multilingual acquisition on brain structure is rarely mentioned.In this study,voxel-based morphometry(VBM)was applied to investigate the effect of second language acquisition on brain microstructure.Materials and Methods: 70 healthy volunteers were recruited to participate in the study,which were divided into two groups.Bilingual group: 35 Tibetan volunteers who are proficient in Tibetan and Chinese,20 males and 15 females with an average age of 21.09±1.26 years.Monolingual group :35 Han monolingual volunteers matched with age and education,18 males and 17 females with an average age of 21.23±1.61 years.All the volunteers were scanned with PHILIPS 3.0T MRI,and the brain structure images of T1-3D were obtained.Then the VBM technique was used for post-processing and statistical analysis.Results:Compared to Chinese monoliguals,Tibetan bilinguals brain areas increased in grey matter volume including : left postcentral gyrus,left superior temporal gyrus,left supramarginal gyrus,right inferior parietal lobule,right superior temporal gyrus,right putamen and 8 region of left cerebellar.Conclusion: The acquisition of second language can lead to an increase in the volume of some brain language areas,and bilingual learning can promote the development of cortical areas in th brain language.