经济学人下载:心理幸福感 都市心理

Science and Technology Mental well-being A New York state of mind
科技 心理幸福感 都市心理

Urban brains behave differently from rural ones
都市人和乡村人大脑的不同活动

"HELL is a city much like London," opined Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1819.
1819年，波比?雪莱曾说道："伦敦就像地狱。"

Modern academics agree.
现在，现代学者们同意他的观点。

Last year Dutch researchers showed that city dwellers have a 21% higher risk of developing anxiety disorders than do their calmer rural countrymen, and a 39% higher risk of developing mood disorders.
去年，荷兰研究员们表示伦敦城市居民患焦虑性障碍症的风险比伦敦的宁静乡村里的居民的风险要高21%，而患上心境障碍的风险要比乡村居民的风险高31%。

But exactly how the inner workings of the urban and rural minds cause this difference has remained obscure—until now.
但是，直到现在，对于城市居民和乡村居民各自的大脑活动是怎么引起患病的不同风险，人们还不太清楚。

A study just published in Nature by Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of the University of Heidelberg and his colleagues has used a scanning technique called functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brains of city dwellers and country bumpkins when they are under stress.
在德国海登堡大学的Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg和他的同事们刚刚在Nature上发表的研究中，Andreas和他的同事们使用了一种叫做机能性磁共振成像（fMRI）的扫描技术来观测城市居民和乡村居民在承受心理压力时的大脑活动。

In Dr Meyer-Lindenberg's first experiment, participants lying with their heads in a scanner took maths tests that they were doomed to fail (the researchers had designed success rates to be just 25-40%).
在Meyer-Lindenberg博士的首次试验中，试验者们都躺着，他们的头部都在一个扫描器中，同时做着他们必定做不来的数学题（研究者们把试题的通过率刚好设计在25%到40%）。

To make the experience still more humiliating, the team provided negative feedback through headphones, all the while checking participants for indications of stress, such as high blood pressure.
为了使试验变得更令人难堪，研究者们会通过对讲机给试验者们传达消极的反馈，试验首末研究者们检测试验者们的心理压力指标，比如高血压。

The urbanites' general mental health did not differ from that of their provincial counterparts.
都市人的总体心理健康和乡村人的没有什么区别。

However, their brains dealt with the stress imposed by the experimenters in different ways.
不过，都市人和乡村人的大脑处理研究人员对他们施加的压力的方式不同。

These differences were noticeable in two regions: the amygdalas and the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC).
这些差异在杏仁核和前扣带皮层（pacc）两个区域较为明显。

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.
杏仁核是成对的，两个大脑半球中各有一个，它们在大脑的深处，有辨识危险和产生恐惧心理的作用。

The pACC is part of the cerebral cortex (again, found in both hemispheres) that regulates the amygdalas.
前扣带皮层是大脑皮层的一部分（也在两个大脑半球的深处），它们控制着杏仁核。

People living in the countryside had the lowest levels of activity in their amygdalas.
乡村人的杏仁核显示出最低的活跃水平。

Those living in towns had higher levels.
城镇人的杏仁核则显示出较高的活跃水平。

City dwellers had the highest.
而都市人的是最高的。

Not that surprising, to those of a Shelleyesque disposition.
对于那些和雪莱的观点一致的人来说，这一点也不奇怪。

In the case of the pACC, however, what mattered was not where someone was living now, but where he or she was brought up.
然而，试验者们的前扣带皮层的活动则跟他们在哪里长大有关，跟他们现在生活在那里无关。

The more urban a person's childhood, the more active his pACC, regardless of where he was dwelling at the time of the experiment.
童年时，一个人在城市里生活的越久，那么在实验中，他的前扣带皮层会越活跃，前扣带皮层的活跃水平与他在实验期间的住所无关。

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.
因此，杏仁核看起来是对一个人生活现状的反馈，然而，前扣带皮层在一个人的幼年时期就开始记忆，它跟杏仁核的反馈不同，相比之下，杏仁核的活动跟灵活。

Second-to-second changes in its activity might, though, be expected to认为 be correlated with changes in the amygdalas, because of its role in regulating them.
尽管人们认为前扣带皮层活动的每秒变化可能和杏仁核中的变化有关，因为它有控制杏仁核的作用。

fMRI allows such correlations to be measured.
机能性磁共振成像使得这种关联可测。

In the cases of those brought up in the countryside, regardless of where they now live, the correlations were as expected.
实验中，不论试验者现在住在哪里，只要他们在乡村长大，那么在他们的大脑中，前扣带皮层和杏仁核之间的联系是在预料之中的。

For those brought up in cities, however, these correlations broke down.
然而，对于那些在城市里长大的人，这些联系中断了。

The regulatory mechanism of the native urbanite, in other words, seems to be out of kilter.
换而言之，对于从小生活在城市里的人而言，他们的前扣带皮层的调节机制似乎失常了。

Further evidence, then, for Shelley's point of view.
那么，这是印证雪莱的观点的又一个证据。

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.
另外，人们都知道，在精神分裂症患者的大脑中，前扣带皮层和杏仁核的联系常常会失常，并且，精神分裂症在都市人群中比在乡村人群中更常见。

Dr Meyer-Lindenberg is careful not to claim that his results show the cause of this connection.
Meyer-Lindenberg博士十分严谨，没有公布他的实验结果，这些结果显示了前扣带皮层和杏仁核相联系的原因。

But they might.
但是事实可能就像实验结果那样。

Dr Meyer-Lindenberg and his team conducted several subsequent experiments to check their findings.
为了检验他们的发现，Meyer-Lindenberg博士和他的研究团队连续进行了几次实验。

They asked participants to complete more maths tests—and also tests in which they mentally rotated an object—while investigators chided them about their performance.
在实验中，他们要求试验者做更多的数学题（这些题还是会引起试验者们的心理起伏），同时，研究者们还是会对试验者们的表现指指点点。

The results matched those of the first test.
实验结果还是和第一次实验结果相吻合。

They also studied another group of volunteers, who were given stress-free tasks to complete.
他们还对一组试验者进行研究，在实验中，这些试验者需要完成一些简单轻松的任务。

These experiments showed no activity in either the amygdalas or the pACC, suggesting that the earlier results were indeed the result of social stress rather than mental exertion.
在这些实验中，试验者的大脑中既没有显示杏仁核的活动，也没有显示前扣带皮层的活动，这表明之前的实验结果确实是由社会压力引起的，而不是由心理活动引起的。

As is usually the case in studies of this sort, the sample size was small (and therefore not as robust as might be desirable) and the result showed an association, rather than a definite, causal relationship.
和这类研究的其他情形一样，这次实验的样本容量太小了（因此不足以令人信服），并且研究结果只是种猜想，而不是一种肯定的、有根据的关系。

That association is, nevertheless, interesting.
不过，这种猜想很有趣。

Living in cities brings many benefits, but Dr Meyer-Lindenberg's work suggests that Shelley and his fellow Romantics had at least half a point.
虽然生活在城市中能给人们带来很多好处，但是Meyer-Lindenberg博士的研究表明，雪莱和其他浪漫主义者的观点对了一半。