Learning Languages at a Very Fast Pace Makes Brain Grow

Interested in learning a new language? It definitely isn't an easy task but has many benefits. According to a new Swedish study, learning new language at a very fast pace makes the brain grow.

The researchers studied the young recruiters from the Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy who learnt a new language at a very fast pace. The Academy staffers learn Arabic, Russian or Dari during the first 13 months. The recruits study at a pace unlike on any other language course.

On the other hand, the researchers studied the medicine and cognitive science students at Umea University. These students studied hard but not languages.

The researchers gave both the groups MRI scans before and after a three-month period of intensive study. They noticed that the brain structure of the students of the Umea University remained unchanged. However, specific parts of the brain of the language students of the Academy grew.  In these students the development was seen in size of the hippocampus.

Hippocampus is a deep-lying brain structure that is involved in learning new material and spatial navigation, and three areas in the cerebral cortex.  The hippocampus acts as a memory indexer by sending memories out to the appropriate part of the cerebral hemisphere for long-term storage and retrieving them when necessary.

"We were surprised that different parts of the brain developed to different degrees depending on how well the students performed and how much effort they had had to put in to keep up with the course," says Johan Martensson, a researcher in psychology at Lund University, Sweden.

In addition to this the candidates with greater growth in the hippocampus and areas of the cerebral cortex related to language learning, had better language skills than the other students. Whereas the students who were asked to put effort into their learning, greater growth was seen in an area of the motor region of the cerebral cortex.

 The areas of the brain in which the changes take place are thus linked to how easy one finds it to learn a language and development varies according to performance.

"Even if we cannot compare three months of intensive language study with a lifetime of being bilingual, there is a lot to suggest that learning languages is a good way to keep the brain in shape," said Martensson.