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科学美国人60秒 SSS 盲人大脑的适应模式相似

时间:2020-07-28 01:48:29

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(单词翻译)

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science, I'm Susanne Bard1.

The human brain is remarkably2 adaptable3, constantly being shaped by life experience. A striking example is that in blind people, the brain's visual cortex is repurposed for auditory tasks—such as detecting motion and pinpointing4 where a sound is coming from. But its adopted functions could be even more complex.

"And the question is, well: How much can this part of the brain change its function in people who were born blind?"

Johns Hopkins cognitive5 neuroscientist Marina Bedny. She and her team had blind and sighted volunteers listen to audio clips from entertaining movies while undergoing functional6 MRI scans of their brains. The goal was to find out if, among blind people, the visual cortex is activated7 consistently for complex auditory tasks.

"So we take brain activity in one person, and we correlate it to brain activity in another person. It gives you a way to directly compare how similar the processing of two brains is when they're listening to a given stimulus8. And so that can tell us, for example, whether the visual cortices of different blind people are doing the same thing at the same time."

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列,我是苏珊娜·巴德。

人类大脑具有非常强的适应能力,而且不断受到生活经历的影响。一个有力例证是,盲人大脑的视觉皮层被转用于听觉任务——比如检测运动和确定声音的来源。但其采用的功能可能更加复杂。

“问题是:先天失明者大脑的这一部分能在多大程度上改变其功能?”

约翰霍普金斯大学的认知科神经学家玛丽娜·贝德尼说到。她和团队让盲人和有视力的志愿者听娱乐电影的音频片段,同时对他们的大脑进行功能性核磁共振扫描。目的在于找出盲人的视觉皮层在处理复杂的听觉任务时是否一直处于激活状态。

“因此,我们将一个人的大脑活动与另一个人的大脑活动联系起来。这提供了一种方法,可以直接对比两个大脑在聆听给定刺激时的相似程度。这可以告诉我们,不同盲人的视觉皮层是否在同一时间做同样的事。”

结果呢?

“约65%的枕叶部分有大量同步,枕叶是大面积的皮质区域。”

换句话说,在盲人参与者中,视觉皮层的大部分区域同时被电影音频激活。

但有视力者的视觉皮层并未显示出一致的激活。更重要的是,当电影片段被打乱并变得毫无意义时,盲人参与者大脑的相似性也会明显减少。这一发现表明,视觉皮层不仅仅是简单的声音处理器。

The result?

"You get massive synchrony over something like 65 percent of the occipital lobe9, which is a lot of cortical territory."

In other words, in blind participants, most areas of the visual cortex were activated at the same time by the movie audio.

But the visual cortices of sighted people didn't show consistent activation10. What's more, the similarities became much less pronounced among the blind participants when the movie clips were scrambled11 and became meaningless. That finding suggests the visual cortex isn't just acting12 like a simple sound processor.

"And that's important because it means that this brain region likely went from being a low-level sensory13 area to behaving like a higher cognitive area, which suggests a very extreme level of reorganization and plasticity."

“这一点非常重要,因为这意味着大脑这一区域可能正从低级感知区域转变为较高级的认知区域,这表明一种极端水平的重组和可塑性。”

The study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.

这项研究发表在《神经学期刊》上。

Further research will investigate other ways in which life experiences may profoundly shape cognitive function, from reading braille to programming computers.

进一步的研究将调查生活经历可能对认知功能产生重大影响的其他方式,这些经历的范围从阅读盲文到编程计算。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Susanne Bard.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是苏珊娜·巴德。


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 bard QPCyM     
n.吟游诗人
参考例句:
  • I'll use my bard song to help you concentrate!我会用我的吟游诗人歌曲帮你集中精神!
  • I find him,the wandering grey bard.我发现了正在徘徊的衰老游唱诗人。
2 remarkably EkPzTW     
ad.不同寻常地,相当地
参考例句:
  • I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
  • He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。
3 adaptable vJDyI     
adj.能适应的,适应性强的,可改编的
参考例句:
  • He is an adaptable man and will soon learn the new work.他是个适应性很强的人,很快就将学会这种工作。
  • The soil is adaptable to the growth of peanuts.这土壤适宜于花生的生长。
4 pinpointing 0feaf9de6fb06f40e50c160d8a3f811c     
准确地找出或描述( pinpoint的现在分词 ); 为…准确定位
参考例句:
  • The difficulty of pinpointing primitive and derived characters remains. 要正确地指出原始性状和次生性状仍然感到困难。
  • Pinpointing the true source of power in Japan is a notoriously slippery task. 要准确指出日本真正的权力来源,是一项非常困难的任务。
5 cognitive Uqwz0     
adj.认知的,认识的,有感知的
参考例句:
  • As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大,他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
  • The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。
6 functional 5hMxa     
adj.为实用而设计的,具备功能的,起作用的
参考例句:
  • The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了,但现在可以用了。
  • The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的,只是为了实用。
7 activated c3905c37f4127686d512a7665206852e     
adj. 激活的 动词activate的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • The canister is filled with activated charcoal.蒸气回收罐中充满了活性炭。
8 stimulus 3huyO     
n.刺激,刺激物,促进因素,引起兴奋的事物
参考例句:
  • Regard each failure as a stimulus to further efforts.把每次失利看成对进一步努力的激励。
  • Light is a stimulus to growth in plants.光是促进植物生长的一个因素。
9 lobe r8azn     
n.耳垂,(肺,肝等的)叶
参考例句:
  • Tiny electrical sensors are placed on your scalp and on each ear lobe.小电器传感器放置在您的头皮和对每个耳垂。
  • The frontal lobe of the brain is responsible for controlling movement.大脑前叶的功能是控制行动。
10 activation 24eed33ee38027d124839f0fcdf6adcb     
n. 激活,催化作用
参考例句:
  • A computer controls the activation of an air bag.电脑控制着气囊的启动。
11 scrambled 2e4a1c533c25a82f8e80e696225a73f2     
v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 );攀登;争夺;(军事飞机)紧急起飞
参考例句:
  • Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
12 acting czRzoc     
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的
参考例句:
  • Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她,她只是假装的。
  • During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代,她的表演生涯黯然失色。
13 sensory Azlwe     
adj.知觉的,感觉的,知觉器官的
参考例句:
  • Human powers of sensory discrimination are limited.人类感官分辨能力有限。
  • The sensory system may undergo long-term adaptation in alien environments.感觉系统对陌生的环境可能经过长时期才能适应。

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