考博英语阅读 | 治疗自闭症

小白老师说：《经济学人》是面向全球精英人士的意见性刊物。它能先考证事实，再分析归纳各方意见，最后给读者一种“定见”式的结论，是一种典型的知识精英的编辑思路，信息全面，逻辑清晰，判断独到。

另外，《经济学人》也是国内主流的高端英语考试的阅读理解重要题源。

读完本文的同学请在留言里回答，“嘌呤” 用英语怎么说？

导读：

孤独症有明确的医学界定，也称自闭症，又称孤独性障碍等，是广泛性发育障碍的代表性疾病。主要特征是漠视情感、拒绝交流、语言发育迟滞、行为重复刻板以及活动兴趣范围的显著局限性，一般在3岁以前就会表现出来。自闭症者 “有视力却不愿和你对视，有语言却很难和你交流，有听力却总是充耳不闻，有行为却总与你的愿望相违……”人们无从解释，只好把他们叫作“星星的孩子” —— 犹如天上的星星，一人一个世界，独自闪烁。

Treating autism

治疗自闭症

A drug used to treat sleeping sickness may also help with autism

一种也许对自闭症也有效的昏睡症药物

It was only an initial trial, but suramin’s effects were dramatic

仅在初步试验中，苏拉明的药效已非常明显

Jun 3rd 2017

MICE are not humans. But they are similar enough that many drugs that work in mice turn out to work in people as well. Three years ago, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego, published a paper suggesting that a drug called suramin could alleviate the symptoms of autism in mice. That was interesting, for despite all the research into autism, few effective treatments are available. Now, in a paper published in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, DrNaviaux reveals that the experiments have been repeated on humans, and the drug seems effective for them, too.

尽管老鼠不同于人类，但两者足够相似，许多对老鼠有效的药物在人身上也同样能发挥作用。三年前，圣地亚哥加利福尼亚大学的一位研究者 Robert Naviaux 发表了一篇论文，他提出，药物苏拉明可减轻小鼠自闭症的症状。有趣的是，尽管找遍有关自闭症的研究，有效的治疗方法也是极其少。现在，Dr Naviaux 在《临床和转化神经病学年鉴》发表的一篇文章中表示，他们在人类身也上进行过实验，药物看起来同样有效。

alleviate：v.减轻

Nobody is sure what causes autism. One theory points the finger at something called the “cellular danger response”. This involves compounds known as purines, which command cells to halt their usual activities and brace for an imminent viral attack. That response is normal and, provided it switches off when the danger has passed, beneficial. But some researchers believe that the mechanism can end up switched on permanently. This, they think, can encourage the development of autism.

没人能确定自闭症的病因，有一种理论认为自闭症跟“细胞危险应答”有关。这涉及到一种名为嘌呤的混合物，其作用是命令细胞停止日常活动，为即将到来的病毒攻击做准备。倘若在危险过去后，它会关闭，那这种反应机制是正常有益的。但一些研究者认为这种机制也可能永久性处于开启状态，他们认为这加重了自闭症的程度。

purine：n.嘌呤

brace for：为…做准备

Dr Naviaux’s past work with mice shows that when mothers are exposed to a virus-like stress while pregnant, the cellular danger responses of their pups can become permanently activated. And one side-effect of the response is to inhibit the growth of neural connections that is normal in young brains. The result is a set of behaviours—difficulty with social situations, and a strong preference for familiar things and for routine—that bear a strong resemblance to autism in humans.

Naviaux 博士过去的研究显示，当小鼠在怀孕期间处于类病毒环境的压力下，它们的幼崽的细胞危险应答功能可能会被永久激活。这种反应的副作用之一是抑制年轻大脑中正常神经连接的生长。其结果是导致一系列诸如社交障碍、对熟悉事物和常规事物的强烈偏好这样的行为，这与人类自闭症症状极度相似。

Suramin, which was discovered in 1916 and has long been used to treat the sleeping sickness spread by tsetse flies, blocks purines from binding to neurons. Dr Naviaux reasoned this might help the neurons of young mice afflicted with autism to begin making connections again. Sure enough, as long as the mice were on the drug, they shed many of their autistic traits. The next step was to see if the same would happen with humans.

苏拉明是 1916 年被发现的，长期以来一直用于治疗昏睡病（它通过采蝇传播），这种药物能够阻断嘌呤与神经元的结合。Naviaux 推断这有可能帮助患有自闭症幼鼠重新建立神经连接。可以确定的是，只要老鼠服用该药物，他们摆脱了许多自闭症的症状。下一步就是看人类是否跟小鼠一样出现同样的现象。

tsetse fly：采采蝇，来自南非

trait：n. 特性

Like all early-stage clinical trials, this one was small. DrNaviaux and his colleagues recruited 20 autistic boys between the ages of five and 14. The boys were paired by age, IQ and the severity of their autism, such that for every participant who was given suramin, a similar participant was given saline solution as a placebo. This pairing, and a decision to exclude any recruits who were found to be taking prescription drugs, left the experiment with ten participants in total.

这次实验如同所有早期的临床试验一样，只是冰山一角。Dr Naviaux 和他的同事召集了 20 名 5-14 岁间患有自闭症的男孩。他们根据孩子们的年龄，智商和自闭症的严重程度分成两组，其中一组的每个受试者注射苏拉明，另一组受试者注射生理盐水作为安慰剂。因为要去掉正在服用药物的受试者，再加上分组的原则依据，最后实验总共剩余十名受试者。

placebo：n. 安慰剂

All had suramin levels in their blood monitored for six weeks. Each was given tests designed to measure language ability, social interactions and repetitive behaviours. All the tests were run before the drug was administered and then again seven and 45 days later.（期待您的翻译）

对所有受试者进行为期六周的血液中苏拉明含量的监测。每位受试者会接收专门用来测试语言能力、社交互动和重复行为的实验。

Every participant given suramin showed statistically significant improvements in their performance on the tests at seven days. Those on the placebo showed no significant improvement. At 45 days, the boys who were given the drug were performing better on the tests than they had before the infusion, but it was clear that as suramin was leaving their system, their autistic traits were returning.

每一位受试者在注射苏拉明七天后的表现有明显的提高。而注射生理盐水的一组的表现没有明显的提高。45 天后，注射苏拉明的受试者在实验中的表现较注射前要好，但很明显，随着苏拉明药物从人体内的逐渐消失，他们的自闭症特征在渐渐回归。

Those findings matched the experience of the children’s parents. They did not know whether or not their children had been given suramin or a placebo. But those who had received the drug reported big changes in behaviour. One said that her 14-year-old boy, who had only been able to speak in single words and fragments of words before the infusion, started singing in the days afterwards. One week later, he walked up to his father in the kitchen and said “I want to eat chips.” It was the first full sentence he had uttered in 12 years. Another boy of five began smiling after receiving his infusion. Soon after he began to giggle and laugh, telling his mother, “I just don’t know why I’m so happy.”

这些发现与孩子们父母的体验一样。他们不知道他们的孩子注射的是苏拉明还是安慰剂。但是注射苏拉明的孩子的行为表现有了巨大变化。一位母亲说她 14 岁的儿子在注射苏拉明前只能说几个单词，注射药物几天之后，就开始唱歌了。一周后，他走到厨房对爸爸说：“我要吃薯片。”这是他 12 年以来说的第一句完整的句子。另一个五岁的男孩在注射药物后开始咯咯发笑，他对妈妈说：“我真的不知道我为什么这么高兴。”

utter：v.表达

Such stories are informal and are therefore not listed in the paper (instead, DrNaviaux has collected them on his website). But they add to the impression that he may be onto something. The next step is to try long-term doses of the drug to see if the benefits can be sustained. If they can, then a potential treatment for autism may have been hiding in plain sight for decades.

这样的例子并不正式，因此没有列入论文中（不过 Naviaux 博士把它们收集起来，放在他的网站上）。但受试者的效果让他觉得他可以继续研究。下一步是尝试长期注射，观察这种药效是否能够持续下去。如果可以持续下去，一种潜在的治疗自闭症的方法显而易见的隐匿了数十年。

in plain sight：显而易见