2016 winner Maddie Long's Three Minute Thesis - Language and the Brain: The Skye’s the Limit

by the time I finished this 3-minute talk someone in the UK will have a stroke and someone else will develop dementia and these numbers are increasing as we live longer lives but I have some good news what if I told you that there's something that could potentially double your chances of recovering from a stroke and delay the onset of dementia by five years it's not a magic pill it's actually bilingualism why is that different theories have been proposed but one of the most influential suggests that the constant switching between languages builds what's known as cognitive

reserve which makes our brains more resilient in the face of disease now as fascinating as these findings are what about those of us who didn't grow up with another language that's where my research comes in I want to know if the same effects emerge if you learn a language later in life and how soon we can see results to test this I went to the Isle of Skye to a Gallic College offering one-week intensive courses I tested people before and after the week and found that they experienced significant improvement in attention now I know what

you're thinking it could happen after any type of stimulating course right not quite I use the same test on people involved in other intensive courses and the results were different they improved but not to the same extent as Gallic learners and it's not just scalloped here in Edinburgh tested people learning Norwegian a language very similar to English and Turkish very different and the results were the same across all languages you know the saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks we can put that to rest the improvement was found in all age groups from

18 years old all the way to 78 years old now you might be thinking with such swift improvement won't the results disappear just as quickly well that depends i retested over half of the language learners nine months later every single person who continued to practice a language for five hours or more per week that's just one hour a day maintain that improvement those who studied less than that inconsistent results my findings show that learning a language can improve brain function and as little as one week and that was continued practice this effect is lasting in

a world in which we're growing older and strive for better brain health this could have a huge positive impact on our lives thank you you