深刻的思想對壽命有影響

深刻的思想對壽命有影響

Are you always deep in thought, thinking nonstop about the world around you? Researchers at Harvard Medical School just published a study in the journal Nature comparing the brains of people who had died in their 60s and 70s to those who had died over the age of 100.

你是否總是陷入沉思，不停地思考你周圍的世界?哈佛醫(yī)學院的研究人員剛剛在《自然》雜志上發(fā)表了一項研究，比較了60多歲和70多歲時死亡的人和100多歲時死亡的人的大腦。

Scientists are now looking at neural activity when it comes to human aging. (Photo: Ed Menendez [CC by SA 2.0]/Flickr)

They found that all roads lead to REST , that is, a protein that helps to calm your brain. This protein is enormously important to our brain health: Defects in REST have been linked to Huntington's disease and epileptic seizures, and it's also found in reduced amounts in elderly people with Alzheimer's disease.

他們發(fā)現所有的途徑都通向REST，也就是一種幫助你平靜大腦的蛋白質。這種蛋白質對我們的大腦健康非常重要:休息時的缺陷與亨廷頓病和癲癇發(fā)作有關，在老年癡呆癥患者中也發(fā)現蛋白質含量減少。

REST has been found to quiet brain activity, and it can also protect those with dementia and other stresses.

研究發(fā)現，REST可以使大腦活動平靜下來，還可以保護那些患有癡呆癥和其他壓力的人。

It is currently not possible to measure REST in a living brain, so scientists relied on donated brain tissue from hundreds of people who died from ages 60 to over 100.

目前還無法測量活體大腦的休息時間，因此科學家們依靠的是從數百名60歲至100歲以上的死者身上捐獻的腦組織。

Study author Bruce Yankner, professor of genetics at Harvard, found that the differences in brains were immediately compelling: The longest-living people had lower expression of genes related to neural excitation. REST regulates these genes, and the centenarians' brain cells contained higher amounts of the protein than those who died younger.

研究報告的作者、哈佛大學遺傳學教授布魯斯·楊克納發(fā)現，大腦的差異立刻令人信服:壽命最長的人與神經興奮相關的基因表達量較低。REST調節(jié)這些基因，而百歲老人的腦細胞中所含的蛋白質比那些早逝的人要多。

“It was extremely exciting to see how all these different lines of evidence converged,” says study co-author Monica Colaiácovo, also a professor of genetics at Harvard.

“看到所有這些不同的證據聚合在一起是非常令人興奮的，”該研究的合著者、哈佛大學遺傳學教授莫妮卡·科萊亞科沃說。

Not all thoughts are equal

并非所有的思想都是平等的

Socrates would likely disagree with the notion that too much deep thinking can lead to an earlier death. (Photo: DIMSFIKAS [CC by SA 3.0]/Wikimedia Commons)

While the brain's neural activity has long been explored in issues like dementia and epilepsy, this is the first evidence to reveal how it affects human longevity.

雖然大腦的神經活動長期以來一直被研究在癡呆癥和癲癇等問題上，但這是揭示它如何影響人類壽命的第一個證據。

“An intriguing aspect of our findings is that something as transient as the activity state of neural circuits could have such far-ranging consequences for physiology and life span,” says Yankner.

“我們發(fā)現的一個有趣的方面是，像神經回路這種短暫的活動狀態(tài)可能會對生理學和壽命產生如此深遠的影響，”楊克納說。

Besides looking at hundreds of human brain tissue samples, the Harvard team also experimented with worms and mice by decreasing and increasing their mental activity. All of these experiments found that changing neural excitations affected life spans — and creatures without the precious protein REST in their brain died at a faster rate.

除了觀察數以百計的人類腦組織樣本，哈佛大學的研究小組還用蠕蟲和老鼠做實驗，通過減少和增加它們的智力活動。所有這些實驗都發(fā)現，神經興奮的改變會影響壽命，而大腦中缺乏寶貴蛋白質休息的生物會以更快的速度死亡。

It's still unclear how a person's exact thoughts, feelings or behavior can affect their longevity. Numerous studies have linked optimism to a longer life, and suggested a positive outlook can even affect your body's chemical balance.

目前還不清楚一個人的思想、感情或行為是如何影響其壽命的。大量研究表明，樂觀的態(tài)度可以延年益壽，甚至還會影響身體的化學平衡。

Perhaps most striking about the study is that it contradicts many long-held popular beliefs about our brains and aging. Doctors have stressed that keeping your mind active, whether it's with brain-training games or a daily crossword puzzle, can also help you live longer. But this study's findings suggest that not all thoughts are equal.

也許這項研究最驚人之處在于，它與許多長期以來關于大腦和衰老的流行觀點相矛盾。醫(yī)生強調，保持思維活躍，無論是通過大腦訓練游戲還是每天玩填字游戲，都可以幫助你活得更久。但這項研究的結果表明，并不是所有的想法都是一樣的。

“The completely shocking and puzzling thing about this new paper is… brain activity is what you think of as keeping you cognitively normal. There’s the idea that you want to keep your brain active in later life,” neuroscientist Michael McConnell told The Washington Post.

“關于這篇新論文，最讓人震驚和困惑的是……大腦活動就是你認為能讓你保持認知正常的東西。”神經學家邁克爾·麥康奈爾在接受《華盛頓郵報》采訪時表示。

The researchers hope this study will encourage more research on neural overactivity and what types of therapeutic interventions are possible. But until then, just to be safe, it's probably best not to think too hard about it.

研究人員希望這項研究能鼓勵更多關于神經過度活動和可能的治療干預類型的研究。但在那之前，為了安全起見，最好不要想太多。