双语揭秘:为什么我们总是睡不够(图)

http://www.sina.com.cn 2009年11月24日 14:42   新浪教育

本文选自《小小王林王林》的博客,点击查看博客原文

为什么我们总是睡不够
为什么我们总是睡不够

  Ying-Hui Fu is a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco. She and her colleagues were doing a large scalesleep study when they came across a mother and daughter who had an unusual change to their genetic code. Both had the same mutation of a gene known to help regulate the bodyclocks of animals。

  傅颖慧是旧金山加利福尼亚大学的一名神经病学家,她和她的同事们偶然发现一对母女的遗传密码发生了异常变化——她们体内一种众所周知有助调节动物生物钟的基因发生了同样的突变,于是他们进行了一项大规模的睡眠研究。

  Ying-Hui Fu: When these people have this mutation, their sleepamount is less. Normal people need eight to eight-and-a-half hoursof sleep. These people sleep five and a half to six。

  Even though the pair weren’t sleeping as much, they seemedfine。

  Fu: It’s not like they have sleep problem.They just don’t sleep as much。

  傅颖慧:当这些人有这种基因变化时,他们的睡眠量较少。一般人需要八到八个半小时的睡眠,而这些人只需要睡五个半到六个小时。

  尽管这对母女没有一般人睡得多,但她们精神不错。

  傅:她们没有睡眠问题,只是睡得不像一般人那么多。

  Do they feel tired?

  Fu: Not more than most regular people。

  Fu’s group wanted to study the effect of themutation in a more controlled way, so they created a

  strain of mice with the same genetic change. Sureenough, they found that these mice slept less than the averagemouse. What’s more, they seemed to recover more quickly fromperiods of sleep deprivation. The work is animportant step forward, says Charles Czeisler, a sleep expert atHarvard Medical School。

  Charles Czeisler: This study really shows that uh, the amountof sleep that we need each night is genetically

  hard-wired; this tiny genetic change is making ahuge change in the behavior of both the people and the animals。

  她们觉得困乏吗?

  傅:不会比多数普通人感到困乏。傅的团队想要更可控地研究这种基因突变的效果,所以他们改造出一种拥有同种基因变化的老鼠。果不其然,他们发现这些老鼠比一般的老鼠睡得少。而且,它们似乎能从短时间的睡眠剥夺中更快地恢复过来。哈佛医学院的睡眠专家查尔斯·切斯勒说:“这项研究成果向前迈出了重要的一步。”

  查尔斯·切斯勒:这项研究其实表明,嗯,我们每晚所需的睡眠量是先天的基因决定的,这个微小的基因变化对人类和动物的行为都产生了巨大的改变。

  In some ways, this study raises as many questions as itanswers about sleep. Czeisler says that it doesn’t prove thatpeople with the mutation function as well as the rest of us; it’spossible that they’re just unable to get the sleep they need. Hesays it’s hard to tell because we really don’t understand theprocess of sleep at all。

  Czeisler: No one really knows what the function of sleep is,although the leading hypothesis is that sleep’score function relates to the repair and reorganization of braincells。

  Still, studying this gene could help giveclues about how and why we sleep. As for those of us who don’t havethe mutation, Ying-Hui Fu says that we shouldn’t try and beat ourgenetic code。

  从某些方面来说,这项研究解答了许多睡眠问题,也提出了许多睡眠问题。切斯勒说,这项研究并没有证明这些基因突变的人和我们其余的人睡眠功能一样好,也许他们根本无法获得所需的睡眠。他说这很难说,因为我们真的无法完全了解睡眠的全过程。

  切斯勒:没有人真正了解睡眠的功能是什么,尽管最主要的假设是睡眠的核心功能和大脑细胞的修复和重组有关。

  然而,研究这种基因可以帮助我们找到如何进行睡眠以及为什么睡觉的线索。而对于我们这些没有这种基因突变的人来说,傅颖慧说我们不应该试图去破坏我们的遗传密码

  单词释义:

  1. mutation/ n. 变化,突变。

  2. strain / n. 品种,种类,类型。

  3. sleep deprivation睡眠剥夺(障碍)也就是失眠,或者说是因种种原因不能达到按生理要求每个年龄段应当睡眠的时间。睡眠剥夺包括完全性睡眠剥夺、不完全性睡眠剥夺、选择性睡眠剥夺、片断化睡眠和恢复睡眠。

  4. hard-wired: 天生的,本能的。

  5. hypothesis / n. 假说,假设。

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