英语听力：自然百科 爱情的奥秘

 What is love? And can it potentially throw our senses out of balance? New advances in medical technology mean even the mysteries of love are becoming less mystical and more mechanical. Functional¹ Magnetic Resonance² Imaging (FMRI) is a procedure that uses Magnetic Resonance Imaging to measure the tiny metabolic（新陈代谢的） changes that take place in an active part of the brain. FMRI brain scans allow physicians to determine which part of the brain is handling critical functions, such as thought, speech, movement and sensation. Now some believe this includes love.

 

Semir Zeki, Professor of Neuroesthetics at University College, London, has studied how our brain reacts to emotional stimulation³. Zeki was surprised to discover that love uses less of the brain than he thought.

 

"It is surprising because romantic love really is all engaging in the sense that it, it basically modifies our behaving, our way of behaving. It… We want to get dressed better. We want to look better. We want to… We are concerned about the person we love. So one would have thought that large, very large parts of the brain would be involved, but it turns out that there is a sort of basically four, five areas that are especially active when one is in love."

 

Zeki says love stimulates⁴ parts of the brain which suppress our critical faculties⁵. He says romantic attachment⁶ activates⁷ regions in the brain’s reward system. These coincide with areas rich in oxytocin(催产素) and vasopressin(抗利尿激素) receptors which deactivate⁸ faculties associated with negative emotions, social judgment⁹ and the assessment¹⁰ of other people’s intentions and emotions. This, Zeki believes, explains the power of love to motivate and exhilarate. So far, Zeki has not found any evidence to distinguish the way men and women are wired for love.

 

"At the level at which we are studying this, you must remember that this is a very, very new kind of study, because before, you could not say it, I mean, love is a subjective¹¹ state, how could you say? Now we have developed a technology to do that. At the level at which we are talking, there seems to be no difference between male and female brains. I mean, the circuits that are active are very, very similar in both. However, I would be amazed, if with final analysis, one does not find differences, I mean, there are...there are differences in the way that women love and the way that men love too. There is no doubt about that. We’ll find them in time."

 

Psychologist Dr. Linda Papadopoulos warns the scientific studies being done by Zeki might lead to some people feeling that things that belong to the soul have become too mundane¹². She says love is not all down to chemicals.

 

"All of those things which kind of belong to the soul now seem to belong to the body. The truth is--there is an interaction of both. Yes, those chemicals are involved in making you fall in love, but so is the way your father treated you. So is your beliefs about yourself and how much love you deserve. So are you beliefs about romanticism and what you consider attractive or unattractive. So it’s not as if we were throwing away all the Valentine’s cards and the flowers and say you spray on some pheromones(信息素) and that’s it--you are in love or out of love, as the case may be. But what we are saying is there is a reason that you get that heartbeat, there is a reason that you get that feeling with some people."

 

But if our brain tricks us into thinking the person we love can do no wrong, the poets may well be right to claim that love is blind. What the scientists haven’t quite worked out yet is exactly what makes us lose our senses when we fall in love in the first place.

1 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

2 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

3 stimulation   

n.刺激，激励，鼓舞

参考例句：

• The playgroup provides plenty of stimulation for the children.幼儿游戏组给孩子很多启发。
• You don't get any intellectual stimulation in this job.你不能从这份工作中获得任何智力启发。

4 stimulates   

v.刺激( stimulate的第三人称单数 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用

参考例句：

• Exercise stimulates the body. 运动促进身体健康。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Alcohol stimulates the action of the heart. 酒刺激心脏的活动。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

5 faculties   

n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院

参考例句：

• Although he's ninety, his mental faculties remain unimpaired. 他虽年届九旬，但头脑仍然清晰。
• All your faculties have come into play in your work. 在你的工作中，你的全部才能已起到了作用。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 attachment   

n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附

参考例句：

• She has a great attachment to her sister.她十分依恋她的姐姐。
• She's on attachment to the Ministry of Defense.她现在隶属于国防部。

7 activates   

使活动，起动，触发( activate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Activates the window and displays it in its current size and position. 激活窗口，保持当前的大小及位置不变。
• Pulling out the alarm switch activates alarm and pushing it deactivates it. 闹钟的开和关是通过拔出和按入闹铃开关实现的。

8 deactivate   

v.使无效；复员

参考例句：

• Russia is deactivating some of its deadliest missiles.俄罗斯正在拆除其一些最危险的导弹。
• I go through several complex steps to try to "deactivate" my profile.我尝试了那些复杂的步骤，试图“撤销”我的个人资料。

9 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

10 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

11 subjective   

a.主观(上)的，个人的

参考例句：

• The way they interpreted their past was highly subjective. 他们解释其过去的方式太主观。
• A literary critic should not be too subjective in his approach. 文学评论家的看法不应太主观。

12 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。