EMBARGOED—NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE BEFORE:
Monday, January 12, 2015
 3:00 PM US Eastern Standard Time
 8:00 PM Greenwich Mean Time
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
 5:00 AM Japanese Standard Time
 7:00 AM Australian Eastern Time
The full PNAS embargo policy is available here:
http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/journalist.shtml
Complete list of articles expected to publish in PNAS the week of January 12:
<http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/pnas/subject.htm>
IMPORTANT NOTE: The articles listed below will publish on Monday, January 12,
2015. All other articles will publish throughout the week as soon as final corrections
are made; therefore, the exact date of publication is not scheduled in advance. Please
note that the DOI link of each PNAS article will not go live until the paper has
published.
If you need assistance, please contact PNAS Media Coordinator Luwam Yeibio at the
PNAS News Office at PNASnews@nas.edu or 202-334-1310.

Brain effects of late second language learning
Individuals who learned English as a second language in an immersive setting beginning
around age 10 displayed greater structural integrity in some language-associated white
matter tracts of the brain than did monolingual, native English speakers, according to a
study. Some previous studies have suggested a link between the integrity of the brain’s
white matter and the frequent use of a second language among older bilingual individuals
and those using a second language since early childhood. To determine whether bilingual
adults who learned a second language in an immersive environment—albeit later in life—
experience similar brain effects, Christos Pliatsikas and colleagues recruited 20 proficient
English speakers who were around 30 years of age, had lived in the United Kingdom for at
least 13 months, and had started learning English as a second language around age 10.
The authors used brain imaging analysis to deduce the integrity of white matter in the
participants’ brains. Compared with a group of 25 native, monolingual English speakers of
similar age, the bilingual participants displayed higher levels of structural integrity in several
white matter tracts implicated in language learning and semantic processing, mirroring
previous observations among bilingual individuals who had learned and started using a
second language early in life. According to the authors, time-course studies on immersive
second-language learners might help reveal the onset and pattern of white matter
restructuring linked to language learning late in life.
Article #14-14183: “The effects of bilingualism on the white matter structure of the brain,” by
Christos Pliatsikas, Elisavet Moschopoulou, and James Douglas Saddy.
MEDIA CONTACT: Christos Pliatsikas, School of Psychology, University of Kent, UNITED
KINGDOM; tel: 00447974175557; e-mail: <c.pliatsikas@kent.ac.uk>
http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/pnas/14-14183.htm