How Your Native Language Shapes Your Brain's Wiring.

A new brain scan study suggests that a person's native language may shape how their brain builds connections between different hubs of information processing. The study found that the observed differences in language network structures were related to linguistic characteristics in the native languages of the study participants: German and Arabic. The researchers used diffusion MRI to obtain brain scans of 94 participants, half of whom spoke only German and the other half spoke only Arabic. The scans revealed that the native German speakers showed increased connectivity in the regions of the left hemisphere involved in language processing, compared with the Arabic speakers.