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Science 9 June 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5779, pp. 1537 - 1540
DOI: 10.1126/science.1127761
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Reports

Language Control in the Bilingual Brain

J. Crinion,1 R. Turner,1 A. Grogan,1 T. Hanakawa,2,3 U. Noppeney,4 J. T. Devlin,5 T. Aso,3 S. Urayama,3 H. Fukuyama,3 K. Stockton,1 K. Usui,3 D. W. Green,6 C. J. Price1*

How does the bilingual brain distinguish and control which language is in use? Previous functional imaging experiments have not been able to answer this question because proficient bilinguals activate the same brain regions irrespective of the language being tested. Here, we reveal that neuronal responses within the left caudate are sensitive to changes in the language or the meaning of words. By demonstrating this effect in populations of German-English and Japanese-English bilinguals, we suggest that the left caudate plays a universal role in monitoring and controlling the language in use.

1 Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
2 Department of Cortical Function Disorders, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo 187-8502, Japan.
3 Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan.
4 Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
5 Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, University of Oxford, Oxford 0X3 9DU, UK.
6 Department of Psychology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: c.price{at}fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk

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From the Cover: Brain potentials reveal unconscious translation during foreign-language comprehension.
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E-Letters:

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Left Caudate and Language Control
Maurits Van den Noort, et al.
Science Online, 10 Aug 2006 [Full text]

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)