According to some estimates, more than half of the world's population is multilingual to some
extent. Because of the centrality of language use to human experience and the deep
connections between linguistic and nonlinguistic processing, it would not be surprising to
find that there are interactions between bilingualism and cognitive and brain processes. The
present review uses the framework of experience-dependent plasticity to evaluate the
evidence for systematic modifications of brain and cognitive systems that can be attributed to …

A transformational change in cognitive neuroscience in recent decades has come from
widespread evidence for lifelong experience-related neuroplasticity and its role in
understanding brain and cognitive systems (Pascual-Leone, Amedi, Fregni, & Merabet,
2005). Although it was known for a long time that enriching experience had positive effects
on rat behavior and learning (Hebb, 1949), the extension and application of this capacity to
humans, particularly in adulthood, was not recognized until recently. Research with animals …