美国国家公共电台 NPR--Can simple brain quizzes predict who gets a virus?

Can simple brain quizzes predict who gets a virus?

Transcript¹

Could your smart phone help predict how vulnerable you are to catching² a virus and getting sick? A new, preliminary study suggests that one day it could.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Do you ever wonder why some people get sick and others seem almost immune? Evidence going back decades has shown that people who are stressed or fatigued³ are more likely to catch a cold. Now a study finds that your performance on quick brain quizzes may help to predict how vulnerable you are to getting sick from a virus. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports.

ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE⁴: Our health care system tends to separate mental health and physical health, but, of course, they're inextricably linked. Being stressed out can mess with our immune systems. And researchers have come up with clever ways to study this. For instance, in one study, scientists exposed hundreds of healthy people by injecting a common cold virus into their noses. Then they waited to see who got sick. It turned out the people who had high levels of stress were more than twice as likely to catch a cold compared to people with low stress. Murali Doraiswamy is a professor of psychiatry⁵ and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine.

MURALI DORAISWAMY: It's well known that if you're under periods of intense stress, you are more likely more susceptible⁶ to catching viral infections.

AUBREY: It's also known that a lack of sleep and a lack of physical activity can make us vulnerable to infection, too. Now Professor Doraiswamy and colleagues have set out to determine whether changes in a person's cognitive⁷ performance, such as our ability to stay focused, problem solve and think quickly, may also signal vulnerability. To figure this out, they recruited healthy people who agreed to have the virus put up their noses and also take brain quizzes multiple times a day for several days. One game was kind of like a timed crossword⁸ puzzle - another quiz, scrambled⁹ numbers and letters.

DORAISWAMY: They're all the time tests - so reaction time, just how quickly can you press a button to solve something?

AUBREY: The participants' speed and accuracy was used to gauge¹⁰ their mental sharpness. In addition, the severity of their colds was measured by how much virus they shed.

DORAISWAMY: We were able to explicitly¹¹ quantify how many millions of particles of virus they were actually shedding from their body at each time point.

AUBREY: When all was said and done, there was a wide range of performance on the cognitive test, says co-author Alfred Hero, a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan.

ALFRED HERO: Some subjects were very consistent, and on the other extreme, we had subjects who might go from doing quite well in the morning to doing very, very poorly later on in the day.

AUBREY: And it turned out people who seesawed¹² between good and bad performance were more likely to get sicker with more severe symptoms.

Here's Murali Doraiswamy again.

DORAISWAMY: What we found was that the people who showed high variability also had greater shedding and greater severity of symptoms.

AUBREY: It's not clear why the variability in performance on tests would be predictive. Physician Ron Turner, a longtime common cold and immunity¹³ researcher at the University of Virginia, says his hunch¹⁴ is that this is a marker for other things happening in a person's life.

RON TURNER: It's very likely, in my opinion, that the variability in cognitive function is a stand-in or an association with other things, whether that's stress or whether that's lack of sleep.

AUBREY: Which takes us back to where we started. Both are known risk factors. So perhaps subtle changes in cognitive performance could serve as a broader catchall to predict vulnerability before we're even aware of it. Of course, in real life you can't ask people to do a bunch of brain games all day, but there is a more passive way to measure cognitive changes. And Alfred Hero says our smartphones and laptops can already capture metrics that are reflective of reaction time and mental sharpness.

HERO: How quickly one writes an email, how quickly one clicks on a particular link, how much one goes back and forth¹⁵ in a Google search - all of these things that are much better suited to a continual type of measurement.

AUBREY: The study was funded by the Defense¹⁶ Department to explore the prevention of illness for soldiers in group living quarters, but it could be developed for a broader audience. It's possible one day in the future, just as your smartphone tells you it's time to leave for an appointment to be on time, it could alert you that you're at risk of a virus.

Allison Aubrey, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MASTON'S "LES MONSTRES")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

3 fatigued   

adj. 疲乏的

参考例句：

• The exercises fatigued her. 操练使她感到很疲乏。
• The President smiled, with fatigued tolerance for a minor person's naivety. 总统笑了笑，疲惫地表现出对一个下级人员的天真想法的宽容。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 psychiatry   

n.精神病学，精神病疗法

参考例句：

• The study appeared in the Amercian science Journal of Psychiatry.这个研究发表在美国精神病学的杂志上。
• A physician is someone who specializes in psychiatry.精神病专家是专门从事精神病治疗的人。

6 susceptible   

adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的

参考例句：

• Children are more susceptible than adults.孩子比成人易受感动。
• We are all susceptible to advertising.我们都易受广告的影响。

7 cognitive   

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。

8 crossword   

n.纵横字谜，纵横填字游戏

参考例句：

• He shows a great interest in crossword puzzles.他对填字游戏表现出很大兴趣。
• Don't chuck yesterday's paper out.I still haven't done the crossword.别扔了昨天的报纸，我还没做字谜游戏呢。

9 scrambled   

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》

10 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

11 explicitly   

ad.明确地，显然地

参考例句：

• The plan does not explicitly endorse the private ownership of land. 该计划没有明确地支持土地私有制。
• SARA amended section 113 to provide explicitly for a right to contribution. 《最高基金修正与再授权法案》修正了第123条，清楚地规定了分配权。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

12 seesawed   

v.使上下（来回）摇动( seesaw的过去式和过去分词 )；玩跷跷板，上下（来回）摇动

参考例句：

• The boat seesawed in the heavy sea. 小舟在波涛汹涌的海中颠簸不已。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He seesawed between two opinions. 他在两种意见之间举棋不定。 来自互联网

13 immunity   

n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权

参考例句：

• The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
• He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。

14 hunch   

n.预感，直觉

参考例句：

• I have a hunch that he didn't really want to go.我有这么一种感觉，他并不真正想去。
• I had a hunch that Susan and I would work well together.我有预感和苏珊共事会很融洽。

15 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

16 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。