VOA慢速英语:Electric Shocks, Not Drugs, Help A Brain Disease

Modern medicine mainly uses drugs to cure disease. But what if drugs were replaced with electricity? Pacemakers, small machines that doctors surgically place in the body, already use electric signals to help weak hearts beat right.
现代医学主要采用药物来治疗疾病。但是，如果将药物换成电流呢？心脏起搏器这种医生用外科手术方法放置在人体内的小机器已经利用电信号帮助疲弱的心脏正常跳动。

And now, scientists are using electricity on the brain to ease the effects of Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease causes uncontrollable shaking, or tremors.
现在，科学家们正对大脑使用电流来缓解帕金森病的影响。帕金森病会产生无法自控的颤抖。

Simply walking down the street is a great gift for David Dewsnap.
仅仅是走在大街上对David Dewsnap来说是一件幸事。

The usual drug treatment did not help his Parkinson's disease. So, doctors cut open his skull and placed wires, or electrodes, deep in his brain.
常规药物治疗并没有帮助他的帕金森病。所以医生打开他的头骨，在他的大脑深处放置了电线或电极。

The Deep Brain Stimulation System is a two part medical device. One part is thin wires that doctors place in the part of the brain connected with movement. The other part is a battery pack. The battery produces the electric signals.
这种脑深部刺激系统由两部分的医疗设备组成。一部分是细导线，医生将它们放置在和运动相关的大脑部分。另一部分是电池组。这些电池能产生电信号。

Before doctors wired his brain, Mr. Dewsnap could not even take a short walk.
在医生在他的大脑放置电线之前，Dewsnap先生甚至没法走动几步之遥。

DAVID DEWSNAP: "This procedure has been just amazing for me. Without seeing me before, you don't really understand what it was like. I couldn't use ... the left side of my body. I couldn't (could not) use it really."
DAVID DEWSNAP：“这个手术一直让我惊讶。如果你之前没见过我，你真的无法想象我当时是什么状态。我身体左侧动不了，我真的完全动不了它。”

Caleb Kemere is an electrical engineer and brain scientist at Rice University. He has been using brain stimulation in his experiments on rats.
Caleb Kemere是莱斯大学的一位电气工程师和脑科学家。他一直在试验中对小白鼠采用脑刺激。

He knows this treatment works. What he doesn't know is how.
他知道这种治疗有效，但它不知道为何有效。

CALEB KEMERE: "We are probably making it work not as it is supposed to work, but in a new way that allows for movements to happen faithfully or for a tremor to go away."
CALEB KEMERE：“我们可能使得大脑能够工作，只是不像它原来那样，而是以一种新的途径让身体正确运动，或者让震颤消失。”

Mr. Kemere says the small electric shocks may trick the brain. The shocks copy the work of a brain chemical called dopamine. Dopamine helps control movement – or motor activity.
Kemere先生称，这种小电击可能欺骗了大脑。这种震动产生了一种被称为多巴胺的大脑化学物质的类似效果。多巴胺有助于控制运动。

Mr. Kemere wants to develop a brain stimulation system to treat other disorders. He explains that the system would process signals coming from the brain in real-time and then use those signals to control its own electrical output.
Kemere称希望开发一种大脑刺激系统来治疗其它疾病。他解释，这种系统会实时处理来自大脑的信号，然后使用这些信号来控制自身的电流输出。

CALEB KEMERE: "We propose to take this and then expand into something that has a much more complicated processor like the one that is found in your cell phone that can process incoming signals that we actually would be getting from the brain in real time, understand what's (what is) going on and then modulate the brain stimulation in response to that."
CALEB KEMERE：“我们建议采用这个，然后扩展为拥有更复杂的处理器的某个东西。就像你的手机可以处理输入的信号。我们实际上会从大脑实时获取信号，弄明白怎么回事，然后调节大脑刺激的响应。”

Mr. Kemere says first researchers need to settle some small problems such as what electrical signal to use.
Kemere先生称，首先研究人员必须解决一些小问题，例如采用何种电信号。

CALEB KEMERE: "We don't know what signal to use and we don't know how to do that modulation."
CALEB KEMERE：“我们不知道采用何种信号，我们也不知道如何调节。”

The National Science Foundation gave Caleb Kemere money to work on such research. He believes there could be experimental devices that help people suffering from other mental disorders within five years.
美国国家科学基金会为Caleb Kemere提供资金用于这类研究。他认为在5年内会有实验性设备用于帮助患有其它精神障碍的人们。