(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
So, here's the gamble: 20 bucks guaranteed...or a 50–50 chance of winning 60 bucks?
Which would you choose?
The answer might actually be evident in a brain scan, according to a study in which researchers posed actual terms like that to 108 young adults—and the stakes were real. The initial choice and then the outcome if they picked the bet determined how much they'd walk away with, after the study. The research is in the journal Neuron.
"It does work out in our favor that people are risk averse because it means on average we're going to be paying people less, they win would otherwise." Joe Kable, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. After he and his team recorded the subjects' appetite for risk, they scanned their brains using various techniques that visualize anatomy and real-time activity.
And they found that individuals who were willing to throw the sure-thing $20 away for the chance of a higher payout were more likely to have larger amygdalas—that's a region associated with processing fear, and weighing risk versus reward. They also saw in the gamblers' brains more synchronized activity between the amygdala and another region, called the medial prefrontal cortex. But there were fewer physical, white matter, connections between those two regions. Which might seem paradoxical.
"To a first pass intuition you might expect, well, you know, shouldn't these two be going together?" But Kable explains that even though you start out life with lots of those white matter connections, they tend to get trimmed and refined during development. So fewer physical connections between regions could actually indicate a more mature, more developed synchronization of activity between them.
"It's possible within the population that we see of healthy young adults, a more pruned structural connection between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex is a sign of a more developed connection and one that might be more effective or efficient, and thus lead to greater communication between the two areas."
This type of scanning to predict behavior is in its infancy now. But down the line? "I can imagine it being used to help steer people to what the right place to put their money is when they're investing." And the study also hints at the fact that brain scans might reveal a lot more about your attitudes and your behavior than you might think. A good thing to keep in mind.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.
参考译文
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
赌博游戏：是确保能赢20美元还是50%的机会赢60美元？
你会选哪一种？
根据一项研究，选择结果可能在脑部扫描中一目了然，研究人员将上述赌博游戏如实呈现给108名年轻成人——赌注是真的。参与者最初的选择和之后是否下注将决定他们在研究结束后能带多少钱回家。这项研究发表在《神经元》期刊上。
“我们愿意人们规避风险，而结果也确实如我们所愿，因为这样我们能少付参与者点钱，而他们要是赢了我们就得多付钱。”宾州大学的心理学家和神经科学家乔·卡伯说到。他和团队记录了实验对象的风险偏好之后，用可视化结构和实时活动的不同技术对他们的大脑进行了扫描。
他们发现，那些愿意舍弃稳赚的20美元、去追求更高回报机会的人，更可能拥有较大的杏仁体——这是一个与处理恐惧、权衡风险回报有关的区域。他们还看到，参与者大脑中杏仁体与内侧前额叶皮层之间的区域出现了更多的同步活动。但是，这两个区域间的物理和白质连接都较少。这种情况似乎有些矛盾。
“你的第一反应可能是，这两个不应该一致吗？”但卡伯解释说，即使你出生时有很多白质连接，但它们往往在发育过程中趋于精简。因此，两个区域之间的物理连接较少可能表明，它们之间的同步机制更加成熟，也更加发达。
“在我们看到的健康青年人群中，杏仁体与内侧前额叶皮层之间的结构连接更加精简，这可能表明了一种更为发达的联系，同时也更有效，从而使这两个区域之间得以进行更多更好的交流。”
这种预测行为的扫描现在还处于初级阶段。但是之后呢？“我可以想象，它将被用来引导人们在投资时把钱投入正确的地方。”这项研究还暗示了一个事实：脑部扫描所揭示地你的态度和行为可能比你想象的更多。这是一件值得记住的事情。
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
重点讲解
重点讲解：
1. throw away 舍弃；屏弃；
Broody couples might want to throw away any dreams of a boy for him and a girl for her.
打算生小孩的夫妇也许要舍弃一男一女两个小孩的梦想了。
2. start out 起初是；
People set out with a lot of ambition andenthusiasm, and start out with a big goal.
人们满载雄心和热情，开始时为自己制定了伟大的目标。
3. in one's infancy 初期；初创阶段；
Computing science was still in its infancy.
计算科学仍然处于初期阶段。
4. hint at 暗示；示意；
A character's appearance may hint at her past.
一名角色的形象可能暗示其过去的经历。
