Much research has been done on the impact of sensorimotor representation of gesturing on the brain. Despite the varied nature of the research being done, they all conclude that gesturing has an impact on the brain, and this impact tends to be primarily positive. A key study in this area is the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) study by Nilsson et al. (2000). In their study, they formed 3 groups of participants and trained them in different learning environments: Verbal training, enactment training and imagery training. The results showed that participants who had undergone enactment training showed the most activity in the right primary motor cortex, which provides evidence that gestures stimulate the brain. In a similar study by Nyberg et al. (2001), it was found that performing an action caused the same neural substrate as imagining the action. This additional discovery is particularly interesting as it hold new implications on the way in which L2 learners are thought.
It is crucial to understand that gestures encourage engagement with the brain as this opens the door for more research on how the link between gestures and the brain. This link can then be exploited to revolutionise second language acquisition methods by using gesturing as a stimulus to encourage learning.