Prefrontal Cortex

Only in recent decades prefrontal cortex was closely studied and regarded as an influential part in cognition. An individual suffers from prefrontal cortex damage will have difficulty in interacting with others according to social norms, which means he or she will not be able to take cues from others and thus commit minor or even obnoxious faux-pas.

When subjects are asked to focus on their inner states, and not pay attention to reality from outer world, their medial and lateral inferior prefrontal cortex will show signs of activity. (Elkhonon Goldberg, 2001)

This is really an interesting phenomenon because it indicates a close relationship between our cognitive perception and prefrontal cortex. Cognitive ability is always not easy to be accurately measured via empirical devices. Fortunately, neurologists and neuroscientists have discovered prefrontal cortex’s importance and come up with more advanced equipment to detect its activity in human’s brain.

My question is: since prefrontal cortex influences a person’s cognitive development, when undergoing impairment, it will affect the ability in interaction or other trivia things in life, does that mean it could cause certain hindrance in this person’s language acquisition? And how much impact will that bring?

What if we take a further study in people’s second language acquisition? Presumably, a person’s cognitive perception is damaged, he or she should also have similar intricacy in interacting properly in a second language. I wonder whether we can conduct experiments in this direction.

The question is-finding bilingual people that are subject to the experiment will not be an easy task. In addition, if a person struggles with second language acquisition and at the same time being diagnosed with prefrontal cortex impairment, how much will that change the person’s learning?

When observing certain adults’ struggling in language study, I wonder whether they are actually undergoing some severe prefrontal cortex degeneration. If that is the case, what can we do to better their learning? Is it likely to improve prefrontal cortex’s functionality and make it turn back to the normal track? And by what means can we accomplish that without drilling a hole on a person’s skull? Could nanotechnology do that? And how can it be done? Are there other methods that do not involve major surgeries?

I suppose there are many questions worth considering and finding the answers in the near future…