VOA慢速英语2014 一种电刺激而非药物可以帮助治疗大脑疾病

 

Electric Shocks, Not Drugs, Help A Brain Disease 一种电刺激而非药物可以帮助治疗大脑疾病

From VOA Learning English this is the Health Report.

Modern medicine mainly uses drugs to cure disease.  But what if drugs were replaced with electricity?  Pacemakers, small machines that doctors surgically¹ place in the body, already use electric signals to help weak hearts beat right.

And now, scientists are using electricity on the brain to ease the effects of Parkinson's disease.  Parkinson's disease causes uncontrollable shaking, or tremors³.

Simply walking down the street is a great gift for David Dewsnap.

The usual drug treatment did not help his Parkinson's disease.  So, doctors cut open his skull⁴ and placed wires, or electrodes, deep in his brain.

The Deep Brain Stimulation⁵ System is a two part medical device.  One part is thin wires that doctors place in the part of the brain connected with movement.  The other part is a battery pack. The battery produces the electric signals.

Before doctors wired his brain, Mr. Dewsnap could not even take a short walk.

DAVID DEWSNAP: "This procedure has been just amazing for me.  Without seeing me before, you don't really understand what it was like. I couldn't use ... the left side of my body. I couldn't (could not) use it really."

Caleb Kemere is an electrical engineer and brain scientist at Rice University.  He has been using brain stimulation in his experiments on rats.

He knows this treatment works.  What he doesn’t know is how.

CALEB KEMERE: "We are probably making it work not as it is supposed to work, but in a new way that allows for movements to happen faithfully or for a tremor² to go away."

Mr. Kemere says the small electric shocks may trick the brain. The shocks copy the work of a brain chemical called dopamine.  Dopamine helps control movement – or motor activity.

Mr. Kemere wants to develop a brain stimulation system to treat other disorders⁶.  He explains that the system would process signals coming from the brain in real-time and then use those signals to control its own electrical output.

CALEB KEMERE: "We propose to take this and then expand into something that has a much more complicated processor like the one that is found in your cell phone that can process incoming signals that we actually would be getting from the brain in real time, understand what’s (what is) going on and then modulate⁷ the brain stimulation in response to that."

Mr. Kemere says first researchers need to settle some small problems such as what electrical signal to use.

CALEB KEMERE: “We don’t what signal to use and we don’t know how to do that modulation⁸.”

The National Science Foundation gave Caleb Kemere money to work on such research.  He believes there could be experimental devices that help people suffering from other mental disorders within five years.

1 surgically   

adv. 外科手术上, 外科手术一般地

参考例句：

• Unsightly moles can be removed surgically. 不雅观的痣可以手术去除。
• To bypass this impediment an almost mature egg cell is removed surgically. 为了克服这一障碍，通过手术，取出一个差不多成熟的卵细胞。

2 tremor   

n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震

参考例句：

• There was a slight tremor in his voice.他的声音有点颤抖。
• A slight earth tremor was felt in California.加利福尼亚发生了轻微的地震。

3 tremors   

震颤( tremor的名词复数 )； 战栗； 震颤声； 大地的轻微震动

参考例句：

• The story was so terrible that It'sent tremors down my spine. 这故事太可怕，它使我不寒而栗。
• The story was so terrible that it sent tremors down my spine. 这故事太可怕，它使我不寒而栗。

4 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

5 stimulation   

n.刺激，激励，鼓舞

参考例句：

• The playgroup provides plenty of stimulation for the children.幼儿游戏组给孩子很多启发。
• You don't get any intellectual stimulation in this job.你不能从这份工作中获得任何智力启发。

6 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 modulate   

v.调整，调节(音的强弱)；变调

参考例句：

• Please modulate the sound on the TV.请调节一下电视的音量。
• This system could modulate the voice signal effectively.这个系统可以对语音信号进行有效的调制。

8 modulation   

n.调制

参考例句：

• The soft modulation of her voice soothed the infant. 她柔和的声调使婴儿安静了。
• Frequency modulation does not allow static to creep in. 频率调制不允许静电干扰混入。