Bilingual speakers show six-year brain-age advantage over monolinguals, FENS Forum study finds

Research presented at the 2026 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Forum found that bilingual participants had brains measuring roughly six years younger than those of monolingual speakers. The study used artificial intelligence to estimate brain age from connectivity patterns across hundreds of participants in Spain's Basque region. The gap widened to approximately 13 years for people who spoke four languages.

Brain-age gap, by language count

Researchers drew on brain activity data from hundreds of volunteers in Spain's Basque region who spoke between one and four languages, including Spanish, Basque, French and English. An AI model assigned a brain-age estimate to each participant from patterns of brain connectivity. Bilingual participants registered brains roughly six years younger than monolingual peers. Trilingual speakers came in at about seven years younger; people who reported four languages showed the widest gap, at approximately 13 years.

The team also found that participants who learned a second language earlier in life and reached high fluency gained more than those who started later or achieved lower proficiency.

Dr. Tommy Wood on who can benefit

Dr. Tommy Wood, a neuroscientist, performance consultant and author of "The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp at Any Age," said the findings align with earlier research showing that multilingualism may help protect cognitive function with age. Wood, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital that most prior evidence draws from people who grew up bilingual or learned multiple languages in childhood.

He said adults who did not grow up speaking more than one language should not conclude it is too late. "There's no clear cutoff in age where learning a second language would no longer be beneficial," Wood said. Several randomized controlled trials in older adults, he added, found improvements in attention, working memory and executive function after just a few months of language study. Language learning also supports social engagement and strengthens the brain's capacity to take in new information, he said.

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Wood told Fox News Digital that adults should lean into the process of being a beginner. Making mistakes, he said, is one of the primary drivers of neuroplasticity. "If you do choose to learn a new language, get stuck in, challenge yourself and embrace the occasional failure," Wood said. "You'll actually learn faster as a result."

The researchers acknowledged they could not rule out the influence of lifestyle factors and social engagement on the brain-age estimates, despite controlling for age, sex and education.