Coursera: The Bilingual Brain (Notes)
This post is about my thoughts in relation to the Coursera course, The Bilingual Brain by Arturo E. Hernandez (University of Houston). Language development—according to Professor Arturo—continues to happen until the 40’s. The left temporal lobe of our brain, which is involved in language, seems to show maturation up to that age.
One more interesting finding is that when we are babies, our brains produce more brain cells (or neurons) than when we are adults. Naturally, there are more connections between these over-produced neurons (or synapses). We have lots of these little guys at our disposal ready for connection and ready to communicate with each other, AND check this out—because of the overproduction—the neurons and synapses actually get pruned back. They get reduced.
So…Nature does it this way: first the overproduction, then the pruning. I become very hopeful and immediately link this to my language projects and the various other stuff I'm working on. Here's what I'm thinking...
What does this mean? It means I can work with these two facts: (1) language maturation up to age 40, and (2) overproduction of neurons and synapses being pruned and reduced on-the-go as we age. This means, for language lovers like me: GO FOR IT! Learn that language (or languages) and slow down the pruning! Build more “connections” or network for the brain.
Speaking of network, here’s a nice little graphic I found on the Internet. It's a mind map on neurons and synapses.
Source: 1001 ways to learn
It’s very clear now that networking is happening in your brain and mine. In conclusion: Use these neurons! Prevent further decline. Work with nature to create our best self and mind.
“How does the brain process more than one language? And I think a lot of the answers to those types of questions, can be thought of and understood better, when we think about it as a biological process. And we take a biological approach. So rather than thinking that, for example, there’s a Spanish, or an English, or a Portuguese, or a German place in my brain, we could think of it as my brain has a state that it’s in when I’m speaking one language or the other.
So, rather than thinking about a discreet type of system, one in which we have different places for each language, we can think of language as being a brain state. So, there is no Spanish or English place in my brain. There is a Spanish state and an English state, a configuration of activity that occurs as a wave across my entire brain as I speak one language or the other.”
