1. Brain Imaging of Language Plasticity In Adopted Adults: Can a Second Language Replace The First? Young children have a specal gift for learning language. Age of acquisition of a first or second language is a mojor determinant of ultimate proficiency. Age-related maturational processes Act of learning itself However, we are NOT sure. Severela studies with different/opposite results.

2. Does exposure to the first language leave long-lasting traces in the neural circuits facilitating language processing?

3. The results support the idea that plastic changes associated with language acquisition in the first years of life are reversible. The behavioral observations that are collected also support the adopted subject’s claim that they have totally forgotten their native language. The data obtained in the study suggest that when a second language is learned early on, this acquisition does not necessarily involve different brain sytems than those involved learning the native language. This conclusion is in accordance with a previous PET study spoken language comprehension.

4. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ADOPTED SUBJECTS AND NATIVE FRENCH SUBJECTS 1.When listening to French relative to foreign stimuli, although the same anatomical regions were activated, the extend of activation the extend of activation was larger in the native French participants relative to the Korean adopted subjects. Second language can replace first language but this replacement is not complete. The native French subjects’ greater experience with French may have resulted in a widening of the cortical maps for language processing. Because of their desire to learn about their status, adopted Korean participants may have paid more attention to the tasks.

5. 2.Activation in right STS of the native French group was stronger than that of adopted Koreans in Korean-Polish subtraction test. It may be due to a relatve inhibition in the Koeans relative to French Group. However, two groups having no difference in Korean- Japanese and Koean-French substraction tests mitigates the interpretation above.