VOA慢速英语：现代医学的发展

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From VOA Learning English this is the Health Report.

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.

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.

Simply walking down the street is a great gift for David Dewsnap.

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.

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.

Before doctors wired his brain, Mr. Dewsnap could not even take a short walk.

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.”

Caleb Kemere is an electrical engineer and brain scientist at Rice University. He has been using brain stimulation in his experiments on rats.

He knows this treatment works. What he doesn’t know is how.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

Mr. Kemere says first researchers need to settle some small problems such as what electrical signal to use.

CALEB KEMERE: “We don’t know what signal to use and we don’t know how to do that modulation.”

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.

And that’s the Health Report. I’m Anna Matteo.

这里是美国之音慢速英语健康报道。

现代医学主要靠药物来治疗疾病。但如果药物被电能取代了呢？心脏起搏器－－做外科手术时医生放置在人体内的小型仪器，它就是靠电信号来帮助微弱的心跳恢复正常的频率。

现在，科学家正在通过对大脑过电来减轻帕金森症的影响。帕金森症会引起身体不受控制的摇摆或颤抖。

对David Dewsnap来说，哪怕只是沿街散步，都算是给他最大的恩惠了。

通的药物疗法对他的帕金森症没有什么帮助。所以，医生打开他的颅骨，将电线或电极植入大脑深处。

脑深部电刺激系统是有含有两个部分的医疗设备。一部分是医生植入大脑与运动相连的细线。另一部分是电池组，它会产生电讯号。

在医生给他植入这套系统之前，Dewsnap 几乎无法行走。

DAVID DEWSNAP说：“这套程序对我来说太不可思议了。没见过我之前的样子，你就不会明白这对我来说意味着什么。我左半边身体不受控制，我甚至不能掌控它。”

Caleb Kemere是莱斯大学的电子工程师和大脑科学家。他在小白鼠身上做了脑刺激试验。

他了解到这个治疗方法是有效的。但是他不知道是怎么起效的。

CALEB KEMERE说：“可能我们使大脑不像它预想的那样工作，但这一种新方法使得它的运动变得正常，或者说使身体不再颤抖。”

Kemere先生说，微弱的电刺激欺骗大脑。这种刺激会复制脑内一种叫多巴胺的化学物质。多巴胺是帮助控制大脑运动，或者肌肉活动的。

Kemere先生想要进一步研究脑刺激系统以治疗其他的一些疾病。他解释道这个系统将同步处理来自大脑的信号，再利用这些信号来控制它本身的电力输出信号。

CALEB KEMERE说：“我们打算采用这项技术，然后进一步发展成为一个像你手机中有的一个更为复杂的处理器。它可以同时处理我们实际从大脑接到的入射信号，了解发生了什么，然后调整大脑对信号的反应。”

Kemere 先生说，研究人员首先需要解决一些小的问题，例如使用什么样的电信号。

CALEB KEMERE说：“我们不知道使用什么样的电信号，也不知道该怎么调制。”

美国国家科学基金会给予 Caleb Kemere的这个研究资金上的支持。他相信在五年之内，一定会有一些实验设备让那些饱受精神障碍之苦的人们得到帮助。

这里是美国之音健康报道，我是安娜马特奥。