People who speak several languages showed patterns of brain activity associated with a younger estimated brain age in research presented at the FENS Forum 2026, according to findings released by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies on August 22. In the analysis, bilingual participants appeared about six years younger than monolingual participants, trilingual speakers about seven years younger and speakers of four languages about 13 years younger.
Lucia Amoruso of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language led the work with researchers in Spain, Chile, Argentina and Ireland. The team first used magnetoencephalography data from 728 people to train an artificial-intelligence model that learned how patterns of communication among brain cells typically vary with age. Researchers then applied this brain-aging clock to a separate group of 144 people from Spain's Basque region.
Participants in the second group spoke between one and four languages, drawn from Spanish, Basque, French and English. Comparing chronological age with the model's estimate produced a graded association: more languages, higher proficiency and earlier acquisition of a second language all corresponded with a younger-looking activity pattern. The analysis accounted for age, sex and education, the researchers reported.
The results do not establish that multilingualism caused the differences or that learning another language can prevent dementia. The study was presented at a scientific meeting, and the released summary does not describe a peer-reviewed publication of this particular imaging analysis. Researchers also acknowledged that lifestyle, social engagement and other unmeasured factors could help explain the association.
The new work follows a separate peer-reviewed analysis by Amoruso and colleagues, published in Nature Aging in 2025, involving 86,149 people across 27 European countries. That population study linked multilingual environments with lower odds of accelerated biobehavioral aging after adjustment for several physical, social and political factors, but it used different data and cannot serve as independent confirmation of the new brain-imaging estimates.
The researchers plan to test whether comparable patterns occur in people with neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and whether switching between closely related languages places distinctive demands on cognitive control. Until longitudinal and interventional studies are available, the findings support further investigation into multilingual experience and brain resilience rather than a clinical recommendation or guaranteed health benefit.
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