The Commonwealth of Txorierri Services and the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) has launched the GARUNA project, a project focused on teaching Basque to 120 people over the age of 60 who will be individually monitored by the BCBL in order to assess the general state and progressive improvement of the brain health of the participants .
Why this initiative? Some previous research suggests that speaking more than one language protects against certain neurodegenerative diseases and also helps focus attention and ignore distractions, thus improving some cognitive abilities.
The participants in this study will learn a very useful language in their environment while helping to better understand the brain and how cognitive abilities improve thanks to the learning process.
This research will provide very relevant data to find out the progress of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, representing progress both in bilingualism and in aging and neurodegenerative diseases, aspects of great importance for the Basque Country.