文字稿
三名英国研究人员获得了一项价值一百万欧元的奖项。每年，这个奖项会颁给“对欧洲脑神经科学研究作出杰出贡献”的人。以下是 David Shuman 对这三名研究人员突破性研究发现的报道。
How the brain actually holds memories was for years something that was too difficult to understand.
But scientists then realised than one part of it, called the hippocampus, plays the crucial role. Inside it there are billions of connections between the brain cells. And when those links becomes stronger, that’s the key mechanism allowing us to remember.
So, one crucial discovery is that the brain can change: creating new connections, and breaking them.
Another is that faults with this process can be linked to conditions including depression, autism, addiction and Alzheimer’s.
词汇表
hippocampus 海马体
mechanism 机制
depression 抑郁，忧伤
autism 自闭症，孤独症
addiction 嗜好，瘾
Alzheimer’s 阿尔茨海默病
测验
请听报道并回答下列问题。
1. What is the most important process through which we remember things?
2. True or false: For years, scientists found it too difficult to remember how the brain worked.
3. Which word means ‘stores’ or ‘keeps’ here?
4. How are illnesses such as depression connected to how we form memories?
答案
1. What is the most important process through which we remember things?
The key mechanism is through the strengthening of links between brain cells in the hippocampus.
2. True or false: For years, scientists found it too difficult to remember how the brain worked.
False. Scientists found it difficult to understand, not to remember.
3. Which word means ‘stores’ or ‘keeps’ here?
Holds. “How the brain actually holds memories…” means the same as “How the brain actually stores memories…”
4. How are illnesses such as depression connected to how we form memories?
Illnesses such as depression are linked to problems in the memory-forming process.