Anusha EPQ

  I managed to complete all of the tasks I set myself at the start of this month and I managed to finish my blog post about the effect of multilingualism on GM and WM of the brain, which I didn't anticipate. I found reading and understanding this academic paper particularly challenging as it is my first time reading a research of this kind. I had to adjust my way of analysing different times so I could get the most out of this chapter. At the end, I managed to achieve a good understanding of the basics of the brain from this paper.  For next month I plan into diving into the specific neuroscience behind multilingual ( and bilinguals ) brains in children and teenagers. If I find enough research I will separate children and teenagers but otherwise I will research them as one sub-topic. I plan to find reliable documentaries or videos about his topic and try to analyse and extract information from it, like I did with the seminar in April. 

 I have read and analysed "Chapter 11 - Multilingualism and Brain Plasticity" of the Handbook of the Neuroscience by Christos Pliatsikas. I found this particularly challenging and there were lots of scientific terminologies which I had to research on the side. However I decided to read it twice and analyse and highlight the main parts I was interested in.  A neuron has three main parts : cell body, dendrites and axon. The cell body analyse electrical signals from other neurons through dendrites and produce new electrical signals to communicate with other neurons which is carried out by the axon. The axon is covered by myelin which ensure effective communication between neurons.  Grey Matter ( GM ) - high concentration of cell bodies White Matter ( WM ) - high concentration of myelinated axons A common method to measure GM density and volume in a specific area is the voxel-based morphometry ( VBM ). GM in Cerebral Cortex  Areas that seem to be often affected by being multiling

 As I am researching about the effect of multilingualism on the brain structure I have realised that there a lot of terminologies and abbreviations regarding different parts of the brain that I am not familiar with. Therefore to make my research easier, I am going to use this post to make a glossary with all of the new words I come across during my EPQ. 1. Voxel-based morphometry VBM = measures GM density or volume in a given region 2. Gyrus = ridge like elevation found on surface of the cerebral cortex and are made up of grey matter 3. Sulcus = a groove in the cerebral cortex which surround each gyrus 4. Age of acquisition AoA 5. Left anterior cingulate cortex ACC 6. Insula INS 7. Parietal lobule 8. Planum temporal PT 9. Cerebral cortex = the brain's outermost layer 10. Thalamus 11. Basal ganglia = group of subcortical nuclei near the center of the brain 12. Inferior frontal gyrus = engaged in language processing 13. Cognates = when a word has the same linguistic derivation