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Is a polyglot’s brain different?

January 23, 2020

Susanna Zaraysky in scrubs in front of painting of the brain — A Window ino the Mind: Susanna Zaraysky at MIT fMRI lab

Listen to this new Subtitle podcast episode “Is a polyglot’s brain different?”, to find out the answer.

You’ll also learn about my language-learning story and about the brains of people who speak many languages.

I did an fMRI brain scan at Ev Fedorenko’s Language Learning Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study the differences between the brains of those who speak 1 language and those who speak multiple languages.

Susanna Zaraysky about to enter Siemens Magnetom Trio fMRI machine — I am on the fMRI bed getting explanations of how the brain scan will work.

Photo of feet sticking out of fMRI machine and the lab technician in the control room with computer screens — fMRI control room while I am in the fMRI machine

It was an honor to have my brain discussed in the same podcast episode about Emil Krebs, the famous German polyglot who new 68 languages! I know just a fraction of that # of languages. Patrick Cox, the journalist who interviewed me, did a wonderful job in finding audio clips from the Portuguese radio station in San Jose California that played a key role in my learning Portuguese.

Link to episode: https://subtitlepod.com/is-a-polyglots-brain-different/

Update:
There was a shorter version of the podcast on Public Radio International’s “The World” show on 11 February 2020: https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-02-11/polyglot-brain-different-mit-researchers-are-trying-find-out

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