You can change the version of PERL that MATLAB uses by pointing it to a different location, where the new executable exists.
You can edit PERL.M and have MATLAB use a newer version of the PERL executable that you wish.
If your open perl.m by typing "edit perl.m", around line 65 your will see the following:
perlCmd = fullfile(matlabroot, 'sys\perl\win32\bin\');
Comment this code and add your new path as the perlCmd variable.
