深刻的思想对寿命有影响

深刻的思想对寿命有影响

Are you always deep in thought, thinking nonstop about the world around you? Researchers at Harvard Medical School just published a study in the journal Nature comparing the brains of people who had died in their 60s and 70s to those who had died over the age of 100.

你是否总是陷入沉思，不停地思考你周围的世界?哈佛医学院的研究人员刚刚在《自然》杂志上发表了一项研究，比较了60多岁和70多岁时死亡的人和100多岁时死亡的人的大脑。

Scientists are now looking at neural activity when it comes to human aging. (Photo: Ed Menendez [CC by SA 2.0]/Flickr)

They found that all roads lead to REST , that is, a protein that helps to calm your brain. This protein is enormously important to our brain health: Defects in REST have been linked to Huntington's disease and epileptic seizures, and it's also found in reduced amounts in elderly people with Alzheimer's disease.

他们发现所有的途径都通向REST，也就是一种帮助你平静大脑的蛋白质。这种蛋白质对我们的大脑健康非常重要:休息时的缺陷与亨廷顿病和癫痫发作有关，在老年痴呆症患者中也发现蛋白质含量减少。

REST has been found to quiet brain activity, and it can also protect those with dementia and other stresses.

研究发现，REST可以使大脑活动平静下来，还可以保护那些患有痴呆症和其他压力的人。

It is currently not possible to measure REST in a living brain, so scientists relied on donated brain tissue from hundreds of people who died from ages 60 to over 100.

目前还无法测量活体大脑的休息时间，因此科学家们依靠的是从数百名60岁至100岁以上的死者身上捐献的脑组织。

Study author Bruce Yankner, professor of genetics at Harvard, found that the differences in brains were immediately compelling: The longest-living people had lower expression of genes related to neural excitation. REST regulates these genes, and the centenarians' brain cells contained higher amounts of the protein than those who died younger.

研究报告的作者、哈佛大学遗传学教授布鲁斯·杨克纳发现，大脑的差异立刻令人信服:寿命最长的人与神经兴奋相关的基因表达量较低。REST调节这些基因，而百岁老人的脑细胞中所含的蛋白质比那些早逝的人要多。

“It was extremely exciting to see how all these different lines of evidence converged,” says study co-author Monica Colaiácovo, also a professor of genetics at Harvard.

“看到所有这些不同的证据聚合在一起是非常令人兴奋的，”该研究的合著者、哈佛大学遗传学教授莫妮卡·科莱亚科沃说。

Not all thoughts are equal

并非所有的思想都是平等的

Socrates would likely disagree with the notion that too much deep thinking can lead to an earlier death. (Photo: DIMSFIKAS [CC by SA 3.0]/Wikimedia Commons)

While the brain's neural activity has long been explored in issues like dementia and epilepsy, this is the first evidence to reveal how it affects human longevity.

虽然大脑的神经活动长期以来一直被研究在痴呆症和癫痫等问题上，但这是揭示它如何影响人类寿命的第一个证据。

“An intriguing aspect of our findings is that something as transient as the activity state of neural circuits could have such far-ranging consequences for physiology and life span,” says Yankner.

“我们发现的一个有趣的方面是，像神经回路这种短暂的活动状态可能会对生理学和寿命产生如此深远的影响，”杨克纳说。

Besides looking at hundreds of human brain tissue samples, the Harvard team also experimented with worms and mice by decreasing and increasing their mental activity. All of these experiments found that changing neural excitations affected life spans — and creatures without the precious protein REST in their brain died at a faster rate.

除了观察数以百计的人类脑组织样本，哈佛大学的研究小组还用蠕虫和老鼠做实验，通过减少和增加它们的智力活动。所有这些实验都发现，神经兴奋的改变会影响寿命，而大脑中缺乏宝贵蛋白质休息的生物会以更快的速度死亡。

It's still unclear how a person's exact thoughts, feelings or behavior can affect their longevity. Numerous studies have linked optimism to a longer life, and suggested a positive outlook can even affect your body's chemical balance.

目前还不清楚一个人的思想、感情或行为是如何影响其寿命的。大量研究表明，乐观的态度可以延年益寿，甚至还会影响身体的化学平衡。

Perhaps most striking about the study is that it contradicts many long-held popular beliefs about our brains and aging. Doctors have stressed that keeping your mind active, whether it's with brain-training games or a daily crossword puzzle, can also help you live longer. But this study's findings suggest that not all thoughts are equal.

也许这项研究最惊人之处在于，它与许多长期以来关于大脑和衰老的流行观点相矛盾。医生强调，保持思维活跃，无论是通过大脑训练游戏还是每天玩填字游戏，都可以帮助你活得更久。但这项研究的结果表明，并不是所有的想法都是一样的。

“The completely shocking and puzzling thing about this new paper is… brain activity is what you think of as keeping you cognitively normal. There’s the idea that you want to keep your brain active in later life,” neuroscientist Michael McConnell told The Washington Post.

“关于这篇新论文，最让人震惊和困惑的是……大脑活动就是你认为能让你保持认知正常的东西。”神经学家迈克尔·麦康奈尔在接受《华盛顿邮报》采访时表示。

The researchers hope this study will encourage more research on neural overactivity and what types of therapeutic interventions are possible. But until then, just to be safe, it's probably best not to think too hard about it.

研究人员希望这项研究能鼓励更多关于神经过度活动和可能的治疗干预类型的研究。但在那之前，为了安全起见，最好不要想太多。