Cai Lei, Xu Xiaoyu, Fan Xiaoxuan, Ma Jingwen, Fan Miao, Wang Qingxiong, Wu Yujia, Pan Ning, Yin Zhixin, Li Xiuhong
Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Wuhan Children's Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2021 Nov 18;15:748919. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.748919. eCollection 2021.
It remains controversial whether long-term logographic-logographic bilingual experience shapes the special brain functional subnetworks underlying different components of executive function (EF). To address this question, this study explored the differences in the functional connections underlying EF between the Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals and Mandarin monolinguals. 31 Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals and 31 Mandarin monolinguals were scanned in a 3-T magnetic resonance scanner at rest. 4 kinds of behavioral tasks of EF were tested. Network-based statistics (NBS) was performed to compare the connectomes of fronto-parietal (FP) and cingulo-opercular (CO) network between groups. The results showed that the bilinguals had stronger connectivity than monolinguals in a subnetwork located in the CO network rather than the FP network. The identified differential subnetwork referred to as the CO subnetwork contained 9 nodes and 10 edges, in which the center node was the left mid-insula with a degree centrality of 5. The functional connectivity of the CO subnetwork was significantly negatively correlated with interference effect in bilinguals. The results suggested that long-term Cantonese-Mandarin bilingual experience was associated with stronger functional connectivity underlying inhibitory control in the CO subnetwork.
长期的表意文字-表意文字双语经历是否塑造了执行功能（EF）不同组成部分背后的特殊脑功能子网，这一点仍存在争议。为了解决这个问题，本研究探讨了粤语-普通话双语者和普通话单语者在EF潜在功能连接上的差异。31名粤语-普通话双语者和31名普通话单语者在静息状态下接受3-T磁共振扫描仪扫描。测试了4种EF行为任务。采用基于网络的统计方法（NBS）比较两组之间额顶叶（FP）和扣带回-脑岛网络（CO）的连接组。结果显示，双语者在位于CO网络而非FP网络的一个子网中比单语者具有更强的连通性。识别出的差异子网称为CO子网，包含9个节点和10条边，其中中心节点是左中脑岛，度中心性为5。CO子网的功能连通性与双语者的干扰效应显著负相关。结果表明，长期的粤语-普通话双语经历与CO子网中抑制控制背后更强的功能连通性有关。
