经济学人下载:纽约人的精神状态

The urbanites’ general mental health did not differ from that of their provincial counterparts. However, their brains dealt with the stress imposed by the experimenters in different ways. These differences were noticeable in two regions: the amygdalas and the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC). The amygdalas are a pair of structures, one in each cerebral hemisphere, that are found deep inside the brain and are responsible for assessing threats and generating the emotion of fear. The pACC is part of the cerebral cortex (again, found in both hemispheres) that regulates the amygdalas.

都市人总体的心理健康状况与他们所在地区的其他人没有什么差别。但是，他们应对实验者给予压力的方法不同。这些差别主要在两地地方：杏仁核和扣带皮层部分。杏仁核有一对，大脑左右半球各一个，它在大脑深处，与判断威胁和产生害怕情绪有关。扣带皮层部位是大脑皮层的一部分（也在两个大脑半球），它对杏仁核进行调节。

People living in the countryside had the lowest levels of activity in their amygdalas. Those living in towns had higher levels. City dwellers had the highest. Not that surprising, to those of a Shelleyesque disposition. In the case of the pACC, however, what mattered was not where someone was living now, but where he or she was brought up. The more urban a person’s childhood, the more active his pACC, regardless of where he was dwelling at the time of the experiment.

生活在乡村的人杏仁核活动水平最低。生活在城镇的人的杏仁核活动水平高些。城市居民杏仁核活动水平最高。对于雪莱式性情的人，这没有什么奇怪的。然而，在扣带皮层部位情况下，重要的不是一个人现在生活在哪，而是他或他在那长大。不管在实验的时候他住在哪，只要一个人的童年时期生活在城市的时间越长，他的扣带皮层部位就越活跃。

The amygdalas thus seem to respond to the here-and-now whereas the pACC is programmed early on, and does not react in the same, flexible way as the amygdalas. Second-to-second changes in its activity might, though, be expected to be correlated with changes in the amygdalas, because of its role in regulating them. fMRI allows such correlations to be measured.

虽然扣带皮层部位控制着杏仁核，但似乎杏仁核是此时此刻的及时回应，扣带皮层部位并没有像杏仁核那样做出相同，柔性的反应。扣带皮层部位接下来每秒钟活动的变化，也许与杏仁核的变化有关，因为扣带皮层部位控制着杏仁核。 fMRI 显示了这样的测量关系。

In the cases of those brought up in the countryside, regardless of where they now live, the correlations were as expected. For those brought up in cities, however, these correlations broke down. The regulatory mechanism of the native urbanite, in other words, seems to be out of kilter. Further evidence, then, for Shelley’s point of view. Moreover, it is also known that the pACC-amygdala link is often out of kilter in schizophrenia, and that schizophrenia is more common among city dwellers than country folk. Dr Meyer-Lindenberg is careful not to claim that his results show the cause of this connection. But they might.

在乡村长大的人，不管他们现在住在那，这种相互关系都是不出所料的。然而对于在城市长大的人来说，这种相互关系已经不存在了。换句话说，土生土长的城市人的调控机制似乎脱离了平衡。这是证明雪莱观点的更近一步的证据。而且，众所周知，在精神分裂症病人中，扣带皮层-杏仁核的联系是脱离平衡的，和乡村居民相比，精神分裂症在城市居民中更普遍。迈耶-林登贝格博士很慎重，没有声称他的研究结果表明了这种关联是因果关系。但是，他们也许是因果关系。