VOA慢速英语:Light Color Affects Mood

Some colors that people see late at night could cause signs of the condition mental health experts call clinical depression. That was the finding of a study that builds on earlier study findings. They show that individuals who live or work in low levels of light overnight can develop clinical depression.
人们深夜看到的一些颜色可能会导致精神卫生专家所说的抑郁症的迹象。这是基于早些研究发现的一项研究的结果。这些表明晚上在昏暗光线下生活或工作的人可能会导致临床抑郁症。

Doctors use the words clinical depression to describe severe form of depression. Signs may include loss of interest or pleasure in most activities, low energy levels and thoughts of death or suicide.
医生们使用临床抑郁症来形容严重的抑郁症。迹象可能包括，对大部分活动失去兴趣或乐趣，体能差，有死亡或自杀的想法。

In the new study, American investigators designed an experiment that exposed hamsters to different colors. The researchers chose hamsters because they are nocturnal, which means they sleep during the day and are active at night.
在该新研究中，美国研究人员设计了一个实验，将仓鼠暴露于不同的颜色中。研究人员选择仓鼠是因为它们昼伏夜出，这意味着它们白天睡觉，而在夜间活动。

The animals were separated into 4 groups. One group of hamsters was kept in the dark during their nighttime period. Another group was placed in foldable blue light, a third group slept in foldable white light. While a fourth was put in foldable red light.
这些动物被分为4组。一组仓鼠在他们的夜晚时段被放置在黑暗中。另一组放在可折叠的蓝灯下，第三组睡在可折叠的白灯下。而第四组放在可折叠的红灯下。

After four weeks, the researchers noted how much sugary water the hamsters drank. They found that the more depressed animals drank the least amount of water.
四个星期后，研究人员记录了仓鼠喝了多少糖水。他们发现，仓鼠越抑郁喝水越少。

Randy Nelson heads the Department of Neuroscience at Ohio State University. He says animals that slept in blue and white light appeared to be the most depressed.
Randy Nelson负责俄亥俄州立大学神经科学系。他说，仓鼠睡在蓝灯和白灯下的似乎最为抑郁。

"What we saw is these animals didn't show any sleep disruptions at all but they did have mucked up circadian clock genes and they did show depressive phenotypes whereas if they were in the dim red light, they did not."
“我们看到这些仓鼠未表现出任何睡眠中断。但它们的生物钟基因已经被打乱了，并表现出抑郁症的迹象。但是如果在红灯下，他们就没有这些迹象。”

Randy Nelson notes that photosensitive cells in the retina, have little to do with eyesight. He says these cells send signals to the area of the brain that controls what has been called the natural sleep-wake cycle.
Randy Nelson指出，视网膜上的感光细胞和视力关系不大。这些细胞将信号发送到控制自然睡眠-觉醒周期的大脑区域。

He says there's a lot of blue in white light, this explains why the blue light and white light hamsters appear to be more depressed than the hamsters see red light or darkness.
他说，在白光中有很多蓝光，这也解释为什么蓝光和白光下的仓鼠比红光或黑暗中的仓鼠更为抑郁。

Mr Nelson has suggestions for people who work late at night, or those who like to stay up late.
Nelson先生对上夜班和喜欢熬夜的人有些建议。

"My recommendation is if you are just living a typical mostly active [life] during the day, mostly inactive at night, you want to limit exposure to TVs which are quite bluish in the light they give off and computer screens and things like that. You can get filtered glass, you can get filters on your computer screen and filters on your eReaders to put it more in the reddish light."
“我的建议是，如果你是典型的白天活动，晚上休息，你想减少暴露在发出蓝色光的电视、电脑屏幕和类似的东西下，你可以戴过滤镜，或者在您的电子阅读器或电脑屏幕上安装过滤器，使它们更偏于红光。”

The report on the effects of light on emotions was published in The Journal of Neuroscience. 
光线对情绪影响的这份报告发表在《神经科学》杂志上。