# The impact of bilingualism on cognitive reserve/resilience using socio-demographically and linguistically diverse populations

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2023 · $942,151

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, impacting millions of people globally.
Despite the advancements in understanding fundamental biological constructs of AD and the fact that the global
population of bilinguals has outnumbered monolinguals, our understanding of the impact of bilingualism on
AD/ADRD (AD and related dementias) remains limited. Previous bilingualism studies suggest that the bilingual
experience impacts cognition and AD/ADRD, albeit in varying scale that stems from variabilities in demographic
profiles and prevalence of ADRD risk factors.
 The overarching goal of this study is to directly interrogate the neural and sociocultural aspects of bilingualism
across multiple race/ethnic groups, with specific emphasis on deconstructing the links between bilingualism and
AD. To accomplish this, the University of California, San Francisco Alzheimer's Disease Research Center in
California, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in India, and the Health and Aging Brain
Study- Health Disparities study in Texas will jointly assemble one of the largest, multicultural, multilingual, and
well-characterized cohort of 2,200 individuals representing the world’s most commonly spoken languages:
Chinese, Spanish, Kannada, and English languages.
 This study team will collect cross-sectional data on cognition, imaging, molecular biomarkers, language
background, and SDOH, and follow-up language, SDOH, and cognitive data for three years. We intend to build
a theoretical framework on the cognitive role of bilingualism by deconstructing bilingualism and examining its
features via a multidimensional lens. We will examine the inter-relationship of this multidimensional bilingualism
construct with cognition and social determinants of health using structural and functional magnetic resonance
imaging and AD/ADRD molecular biomarkers. Our central hypothesis is that specific bilingualism features would
influence the cognitive trajectory by improving executive control through the mechanism of brain and cognitive
reserve even after accounting for social determinants of health and AD/ADRD biomarkers.
 This proposed study will provide novel mechanistic insights into the multidimensionality of bilingualism and
create an exclusive opportunity to study the cognitive relevance of bilingualism using socio-demographically and
linguistically diverse cohorts. This study also has the unique settings to evaluate the generalizability of the
proposed cognitive-bilingualism theoretical framework across populations that differ in sociocultural,
demographic, and linguistic background.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10584245
- **Project number:** 1R01AG080469-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Suvarna Alladi
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $942,151
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-05-01 → 2028-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10584245

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10584245, The impact of bilingualism on cognitive reserve/resilience using socio-demographically and linguistically diverse populations (1R01AG080469-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10584245. Licensed CC0.

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