2018年经济学人 “一孕傻三年”有科学依据(1)

 

Science and technology: Neuroscience: Brain mater

科技：神经科学：脑膜

Scanning reveals what pregnancy¹ does to a mother’s brain.

扫描揭示了怀孕对母亲大脑的影响。

As any parent will tell you, once you have had children nothing is ever quite the same.

正如所有家长会告诉你的那样，一旦你有了孩子，一切都变得不一样了。

Including, it seems, their mothers’ brains.

似乎母亲的大脑也会发生变化。

In a paper just published in Nature Neuroscience, a team led by Elseline Hoekzema of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, in Spain,

《自然-神经科学》杂志刚刚发表的一篇论文中，由Elseline Hoekzema带领的西班牙巴塞罗那自治大学的团队，

describe for the first time how pregnancy alters women’s brains, rewiring them in ways that persist long after a child has been born.

首次描述了直到宝宝出生以后很久的一段时间内，怀孕是如何改变及重塑女性大脑的。

Dr Hoekzema and her colleagues performed detailed² brain scans on 65 female volunteers, none of whom had been pregnant before, but hoped to be in the near future, and a further 20 who had no such desire.

Hoekzema博士和她的同事对65名女性志愿者进行详细的脑部扫描，这65名志愿者目前都没有受孕但都有近期怀孕的打算，另外还扫描了20位没有受孕打算的志愿者。

About 15 months later, by which time 25 of their volunteers had carried babies to term, they repeated the process.

大约15个月后又对已怀孕的25名志愿者进行了脑部扫描。

Comparing the scans showed significant reductions in the volume of grey matter in the brains of the new mothers.

对比这些脑部扫描发现孕妇灰质体积明显减少。

(Grey matter contains the main bodies of nerve cells; white matter, the brain’s other component³, consists mostly of the nerve fibresthat link those cells together.)

（灰质内包含神经细胞的主体；白质指大脑的其他构成成分，主要由连接神经细胞的神经纤维构成。）

The effect was reliable enough that it could be used by itself to predict, with perfect accuracy, which of the women had been pregnant and which had not.

这一影响可以非常准确可靠地预测女性是否怀孕。

And it was persistent⁴, too. When the researchers retested the mothers two years later, most of the alterations⁵ were still present.

并且这一影响比较持久，2年后研究人员对这些母亲进行了重新测试发现大多数孕期改变仍然存在。

DrHoekzema and her colleagues suspected that something in the biological process of pregnancy itself was causing the changes.

Hoekzema博士和她的同事们怀疑是怀孕的生物化过程引发了这些变化。

To double-check, and to make sure that the experience of preparing for parenthood was not the true culprit, they also compared their women’s brains with those of some men—both fathers and those without children.

为了复核并确保孕前准备并不是真正原因，他们还将这些女性的大脑与一些已为人父和尚未生育的男性进行了比较。

The men’s brains, like those of the childless women, showed no such pattern of changes.

这些男性的大脑同为受孕的女性一样，都没有这类变化。

And the results fit with studies on animals.

这个结果与动物实验的结果相吻合。

Rats that have had pups, for instance, show notable and lasting⁶ changes in brain structure.

例如有幼崽的白鼠的大脑结构发生了显著而持久的变化。

They also tend to be less anxious, better able to cope with stress, and to have better memory than their pupless contemporaries.

与未受孕的白鼠相比，它们有焦虑度低，抗压力强，记忆力更好的倾向。

1 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

2 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

3 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。

4 persistent   

adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的

参考例句：

• Albert had a persistent headache that lasted for three days.艾伯特连续头痛了三天。
• She felt embarrassed by his persistent attentions.他不时地向她大献殷勤，使她很难为情。

5 alterations   

n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变

参考例句：

• Any alterations should be written in neatly to the left side. 改动部分应书写清晰，插在正文的左侧。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code. 基因突变是指DNA 密码的改变。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。