2017考研英語拓展閱讀：揭秘大腦語言圖譜

　　Scientists in the US have mapped out how the brain organises language.

　　美國科學(xué)家已經(jīng)繪制出了語義圖譜，該圖譜能展示人類大腦如何組織語言。

　　Their "semantic atlas" shows how, for example, one region of the brain activates in response to words about clothing and appearance.

　　他們的“語義圖譜”展示了大腦的某個(gè)區(qū)域是如何響應(yīng)諸如服裝和外貌之類的語言的。

　　The researchers found that these maps were quite similar across the small number of individuals in the study, even down to minor details.

　　研究者發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些圖譜在一小部分受試者中十分相似，甚至微小的細(xì)節(jié)都十分相似。

　　The work, by a team at the University of California, Berkeley, is published in the journal Nature.

　　加州大學(xué)伯克利分校的一個(gè)研究小組主導(dǎo)該項(xiàng)研究，并將結(jié)果發(fā)表在《自然》雜志上。

　　It had previously been proposed that information about words’ meaning was represented in a group of brain regions known as the semantic system.

　　之前就曾有人提出，語言含義的信息由大腦一部分區(qū)域呈現(xiàn)，我們稱之為語義系統(tǒng)。

　　But the new work uncovers the fine detail of this network, which is spread right across the outer layer of the human brain.

　　但這項(xiàng)新的研究揭示了這個(gè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)的詳細(xì)信息，即它們在人類大腦外層進(jìn)行傳遞。

　　The results could eventually help those who are unable to speak, such as victims of stroke or brain damage, or motor neuron diseases.

　　該研究結(jié)果也許能夠幫助不能說話的人，比如中風(fēng)、腦損傷或運(yùn)動神經(jīng)元疾病患者。

　　Volunteers - including lead author Alex Huth - listened to more than two hours of stories from a US radio programme while remaining still inside a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner.

　　包括該研究主要作者亞歷克斯胡斯在內(nèi)的志愿者們一邊收聽美國廣播節(jié)目里長達(dá)兩個(gè)多小時(shí)的故事，一邊在功能核磁共振成像掃描儀下保持靜止。

　　Higher’ functions

　　高級功能

　　The team collected data on changes in blood flow and oxygenation - indicators of activity - in different areas of the cerebral cortex.

　　該小組收集了大腦皮層不同區(qū)域內(nèi)活躍性指標(biāo)-血流量以及充氧作用的變化情況數(shù)據(jù)。

　　The cerebral cortex is the brain’s outer layer of tissue, playing a key role in higher functions such as language and consciousness.

　　大腦皮層是大腦最外層的組織，在語言和意識等高級功能中扮演著重要角色。

　　The brain imaging data were matched against time-coded transcriptions of the stories. The researchers then used a computer algorithm that scored words according to how closely they are related in terms of meaning.

　　研究者們將腦成像數(shù)據(jù)和按時(shí)間編碼的故事文本相對比，然后使用計(jì)算機(jī)演算法，根據(jù)詞語和意思的匹配程度進(jìn)行打分。

　　The results were converted into a thesaurus-like map where the words were arranged on the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

　　結(jié)果被轉(zhuǎn)化成一張類似分類辭典的圖譜，不同的單詞分布在大腦的左半球和右半球。

　　They show that the semantic system is distributed broadly in more than 100 distinct areas across both halves - hemispheres - of the cortex and in intricate patterns that were consistent across individuals in the study.

　　結(jié)果表明，在大腦皮層的兩個(gè)半球中，語義系統(tǒng)被明顯地分為一百多個(gè)不同區(qū)域，其模式復(fù)雜，但不同受試者卻保持一致性。

　　The maps show that many areas of the human brain represent language describing people and social relations rather than abstract concepts.

　　這張圖譜表明人類大腦的多數(shù)區(qū)域呈現(xiàn)了描述人類和社會關(guān)系的語言，而不是一些抽象的概念。

　　But the same word could be repeated several times on different parts of the brain map. For example, the word "top" was represented in a part of the brain that responds to words about clothing and appearance, and also in a region that deals with numbers and measurements.

　　但在大腦圖譜中，有一些詞語會在大腦不同區(qū)域多次重復(fù)出現(xiàn)，例如“頂部”這個(gè)詞，它出現(xiàn)在大腦中一個(gè)對服飾和外貌有反應(yīng)的區(qū)域，同時(shí)還出現(xiàn)在處理數(shù)據(jù)和尺寸的區(qū)域內(nèi)。

　　"Our semantic models are good at predicting responses to language in several big swaths of cortex," said Dr Huth.

　　“我們的語義模型擅長預(yù)測大腦皮層大的褶皺處對語言的反應(yīng)�！焙�斯博士說。

　　"But we also get the fine-grained information that tells us what kind of information is represented in each brain area. That’s why these maps are so exciting and hold so much potential."

　　“但我們同時(shí)會得到詳細(xì)的信息，它能告訴我們大腦每個(gè)區(qū)域呈現(xiàn)什么樣的信息。這也是為什么這些圖譜如此激動人心且潛力巨大的原因�！�

　　Scientists could track the brain activity of patients who have difficulty communicating and then match that data to language maps to determine what their patients are trying to express.

　　科學(xué)家能夠追蹤有交流障礙的病人的大腦活動，將這些數(shù)據(jù)與語言圖譜對比，即可確認(rèn)這些病人想要表達(dá)什么。

　　"Although the maps are broadly consistent across individuals, there are also substantial individual differences," said the study’s senior author Jack Gallant.

　　“盡管這些圖譜在不同個(gè)體身上大致一致，但仍存在巨大的個(gè)體差異�！痹撗芯抠Y深作者杰克加侖特說。

　　"We will need to conduct further studies across a larger, more diverse sample of people before we will be able to map these individual differences in detail."

　　“要想弄清楚個(gè)體化差異的細(xì)節(jié)，我們需要在一個(gè)更大、更多元化的人群中展開進(jìn)一步研究�！�