Berger, Lea; Mouthon, Michael; Jost, Lea B; Schwab, Sandra; Aybek, Selma; Annoni, Jean-Marie (2024). Does Diglossia Impact Brain Structure? Data from Swiss German Early Diglossic Speakers. Brain Sciences, 14(4) MDPI 10.3390/brainsci14040304
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(1) Background: Bilingualism has been reported to shape the brain by inducing cortical changes in cortical and subcortical language and executive networks. Similar yet different to bilingualism, diglossia is common in Switzerland, where the German-speaking population switches between an everyday spoken Swiss German (CH-GER) dialect and the standard German (stGER) used for reading and writing. However, no data are available for diglossia, defined as the use of different varieties or dialects of the same language, regarding brain structure. The aim of our study is to investigate if the presence of this type of diglossia has an impact on the brain structure, similar to the effects seen in bilingualism. (2) Methods: T1-weighted anatomical MRI scans of participants were used to compare the grey matter density and grey matter volume of 22 early diglossic CH-GER-speaking and 20 non-diglossic French-speaking right-handed university students, matched for age, linguistics and academic background. The images were processed with Statistical Parametric Mapping SPM12 and analyzed via voxel- and surface-based morphometry. (3) Results: A Bayesian ANCOVA on the whole brain revealed no differences between the groups. Also, for the five regions of interest (i.e., planum temporale, caudate nucleus, ACC, DLPFC and left interior parietal lobule), no differences in the cortical volume or thickness were found using the same statistical approach. (4) Conclusion: The results of this study may suggest that early diglossia does not shape the brain structure in the same manner as bilingualism.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Head Organs and Neurology (DKNS) > Clinic of Neurology 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of French Language and Literature 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of French Language and Literature > Linguistic Studies |
UniBE Contributor: |
Schwab, Sandra, Aybek Rusca, Selma |
Subjects: |
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health 800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 840 French & related literatures 400 Language > 440 French & related languages |
ISSN: |
2076-3425 |
Publisher: |
MDPI |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Pubmed Import |
Date Deposited: |
29 Apr 2024 07:44 |
Last Modified: |
29 Apr 2024 07:53 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.3390/brainsci14040304 |
PubMed ID: |
38671956 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
MRI bilingualism brain diglossia grey matter language |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/196311 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/196311 |
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