Multilingual experience may help preserve youthful patterns of brain connectivity, although further research is needed to establish why.
Switching between languages can demand constant attention. A speaker may need to select one vocabulary, suppress another, and adjust to different sounds or grammar, all within seconds. Research presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) Forum 2026 suggests that this repeated mental exercise may be associated with brains that appear younger than expected.
The brain contains billions of nerve cells that exchange information through vast communication networks. Those connections commonly weaken with age, contributing to slower thinking and declining memory.
Dr Lucia Amoruso and her colleagues found that participants who spoke more languages generally showed younger patterns of brain connectivity. Earlier exposure to an additional language and greater fluency were also associated with more delayed brain aging, suggesting that both the length and intensity of multilingual experience may matter.
Amoruso, from the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language in San Sebastián, Spain, presented the findings. She collaborated with researchers from the Latin American Brain Health Institute at the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Chile, the Cognitive Neuroscience Center at the Universidad de San Andres, Argentina, and the Global Brain Health Institute at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Building a brain age clock
The investigation grew from earlier work showing that populations in countries where multilingualism is common appeared to age more slowly. To examine that pattern in greater detail, Amoruso and her colleagues focused on people from Spain’s Basque region, where residents may regularly use Spanish, Basque, French and English.
Participants spoke between one and four languages in different combinations. This setting allowed the researchers to move beyond a simple comparison of monolingual and bilingual speakers and examine whether increasing language experience corresponded with progressively younger brain patterns.
The first challenge was finding a reliable way to estimate how old a brain appeared based on its activity. To build that reference, the researchers studied 728 people using magnetoencephalography. The technique records the extremely faint magnetic fields generated when brain cells become active, providing a way to track how different parts of the brain communicate.
Artificial intelligence then analyzed the recordings across different age groups. By learning what typical brain connectivity looks like at each stage of life, the system created a ‘brain aging clock’ that could estimate age from patterns of neural communication.
The researchers next applied that clock to a separate group of 144 people. Using a second group was important because it allowed them to test the model on individuals whose data had not been used to construct it.
More languages linked to younger brains
The difference emerged when the researchers compared each participant’s chronological age with the age predicted from their brain activity.
People who spoke two languages had brains that appeared approximately six years younger than those of people who spoke only one. The estimated difference increased to about seven years among speakers of three languages and about 13 years among those who spoke four.
Dr Amoruso said: “In simple terms, people who spoke more languages tended to have brains that looked younger than expected for their chronological age. The effect was not only related to the number of languages spoken. Higher language proficiency and earlier acquisition of a second language were also associated with more delayed brain aging. This suggests that multilingual experience matters as a gradient: it is not simply about being bilingual or not, but about the depth and duration of language experience.”
Limits shape the next questions
The researchers adjusted their analysis for age, sex and education, all of which could influence brain measurements. Even so, the findings cannot show that multilingualism directly caused the younger brain patterns.
Other differences between participants may partly explain the association. People who speak several languages may also differ in lifestyle, social activity or other experiences that help maintain brain health.
Amoruso and her colleagues now plan to investigate whether similar patterns appear in people with neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. These disorders gradually damage nerve cells and brain function, making it especially important to understand experiences that may strengthen the brain’s ability to cope with age-related changes.
They also want to examine whether managing closely related languages has a particularly strong effect. Similar languages may share many words and grammatical structures, potentially forcing speakers to exert greater control to choose the intended language while keeping the other from interfering.
Language learning may support resilience
Professor Christina Dalla of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, chairs the FENS Forum communication committee and was not involved in the research. She said: “We know that many factors can influence our brain health and mental abilities as we age. For example, we know that not smoking, eating well, social and artistic engagement, as well as being active, can help. How we use our brains throughout life can also have an impact, especially if we engage in effortful learning that activates our brain.
“This study suggests that learning a second, third or fourth language could help our brains to stay younger for longer, and the earlier we start, the better. There are many good reasons for learning another language at any age – social, cultural and for the health of your brain – so we should support language learning at school and throughout life, even if it’s hard.”
Reference: “Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries” by Lucia Amoruso, Hernan Hernandez, Hernando Santamaria-Garcia, Sebastian Moguilner, Agustina Legaz, Pavel Prado, Jhosmary Cuadros, Liset Gonzalez, Raul Gonzalez-Gomez, Joaquín Migeot, Carlos Coronel-Oliveros, Josephine Cruzat, Manuel Carreiras, Vicente Medel, Marcelo Adrián Maito, Claudia Duran-Aniotz, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Sandra Baez, Adolfo M. García and Agustin Ibanez, 10 November 2025, Nature Aging.
DOI: 10.1038/s43587-025-01000-2
Funding: National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Fogarty International Center and the Multi-partner Consortium to Expand Dementia Research in Latin America (ReDLat). Additional support was provided by the Alzheimer’s Association, the Global Brain Health Institute, the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, Alzheimer’s Society UK, FONDECYT and the Ramón y Cajal fellowship through the Spanish State Research Agency.
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