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. 2022 May 6:16:851669.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.851669. eCollection 2022.

A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study on the White Matter Structures Related to the Phonology in Cantonese-Mandarin Bilinguals

Xiaoyu Xu  1 , Yuying Jin  1 , Ning Pan  1 , Muqing Cao  1 , Jin Jing  1 , Jingwen Ma  2 , Xiaoxuan Fan  3 , Si Tan  1 , Xiaojing Song  1 , Xiuhong Li  1
Affiliations

A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study on the White Matter Structures Related to the Phonology in Cantonese-Mandarin Bilinguals

Xiaoyu Xu et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

Cantonese and Mandarin are logographic languages, and the phonology is the main difference between the two languages. It is unclear whether the long-term experience of Cantonese-Mandarin bilingualism will shape different brain white matter structures related to phonological processing. A total of 30 Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals and 30 Mandarin monolinguals completed diffusion-weighted imaging scan and phonological processing tasks. The tractography and tract-based spatial statistics were used to investigate the structural differences in the bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) between Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals and Mandarin monolinguals. The post-hoc correlation analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between the different structures with phonological processing skills. Compared to the Mandarin monolinguals, the Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals had higher fractional anisotropy (FA) along the left ILFs higher mean diffusivity (MD) along the right IFOF and the temporoparietal segment of SLF (tSLF), higher axial diffusivity (AD) in the right IFOF and left ILF, and lower number of streamlines in the bilateral tSLF. The mean AD of the different voxels in the right IFOF and the mean FA of the different voxels in the left ILF were positively correlated with the inverse efficiency score (IES) of the Cantonese auditory and Mandarin visual rhyming judgment tasks, respectively, within the bilingual group. The correlation between FA and IES was different among the groups. The long-term experience of Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals shapes the different brain white matter structures in tSLF, IFOF, and ILF. Compared to the monolinguals, the bilinguals' white matter showed higher diffusivity, especially in the axonal direction. These changes were related to bilinguals' phonological processing.

Keywords: Cantonese–Mandarin bilinguals; diffusion tensor imaging; phonological processing; tract-based spatial statistic; tractography.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Results of tractography. (A) The five TOIs: fSLF (green), AF (red), tSLF (yellow), ILF (purple), and IFOF (blue) overlaid on a standard MNI brain. (B) The boxplots showing group-wise differences in mean MD, AD, and number of streamlines from tracts. Mo, Monolingual group; Bi, Bilingual group; SN, number of streamlines.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The significant clusters in the tract-specific TBSS analysis. (A) The 3D view. The binary mask of TOI is copper while the significant clusters in the comparison of FA, MD, and AD is in red (FA), green (MD), and blue (AD) respectively. (B) The cross-section view. The mean FA skeleton is copper and significant clusters emphasized via TBSS-fill is set as the same color in 3D view.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
The significant correlation between the mean different DTI indices of significant voxels in the tracts and behavioral measures, within the subgroups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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