雅思课外读物--Why music makes you happy

今天给大家带来的雅思阅读素材跟音乐有关“Why music makes you happy”听音乐时会分泌多巴胺，这是种与上瘾相关的化学物质，让人感觉快乐。这是一篇典型的科普外刊文章，适合提高阅读水平。一起来看看那全文吧！

People love music for much the same reason they're drawn to sex, drugs,gambling and delicious food, according to new research. When you listen to tunes that move you, the study found, your brain releases dopamine, a chemical involved in both motivation and addiction.

根据新研究，人们喜爱音乐和他们沉溺性欲、毒品、赌博、美食等，原因大致相同。该研究表明，如果听到的曲调触动了你，大脑就会分泌多巴胺，一种与冲动、上瘾相关的化学物质。

Even just anticipating(期待) the sounds of a composition like Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" or Phish's "You Enjoy Myself" can get the feel-good chemical flowing, found the study, which was the first to make a concrete(具体的) link between dopamine release and musical pleasure.

该研究还发现，即使仅仅是想一想维瓦尔第的“四季”乐章，或是费西乐队的“你好好爱我”，都会使这种让人快乐的化学物质流动起来。该研究是第一次在多巴胺的分泌和音乐享受之间建立具体联系。

The findings offer a biological explanation for why music has been such a major part of major emotional events in cultures around the world since the beginning of human history. Through music, the study also offers new insightsinto how the human pleasure system works.

自人类历史伊始，音乐便在全世界各文化的主要情感事件中举足轻重，这一研究为其提供了生物学上的解释。通过音乐，该研究还为人类愉悦系统的工作机制提供了新的洞见。

"You're following these tunes and anticipating what's going to come next and whether it's going to confirm or surprise you, and all of these little cognitive(认知上的) nuances(细微差别) are what's giving you this amazing pleasure," said Valorie Salimpoor, a neuroscientist(神经系统科学家) at McGill University in Montreal. "The reinforcement or reward happens almost entirely because of dopamine."

“你听着这些曲调，期待接下来会听到什么，它证实你的期待，或者让你惊讶，所有这些小小的认知差异都能让你产生这种惊喜的愉悦感。”Valorie Salimpoor是蒙特利尔McGill大学的一位神经系统科学家，她说：“这种证实或者回报的感觉能够产生，几乎完全是因为多巴胺的缘故。”

"This basically explains why music has been around for so long," she added. " The intense pleasure we get from it is actually biologically reinforcing in the brain, and now here's proof for it."

她接着说：“这从根本上解释了为什么音乐的历史如此悠久。从生理上讲，我们从音乐中获得的强烈愉悦感在大脑中不断强化，现在我们有证据了。”

In a previous study, Salimpoor and colleagues linked music-induced(引起;导致) pleasure with a surge in intense emotional arousal, including changes in heart rate, pulse, breathing rate and other measurements. Along with these physical changes, people often report feelings of shivers or chills. When that happens during a listening experience, Salimpoor's group and others have found evidence that blood flows to regions in the brain involved in dopamine release.

在之前的一项研究中，Salimpoor和同事们将音乐引起的愉悦感与强情感冲动上升相联系，包括心率、脉搏、呼吸率等的变化。伴随着这些生理变化，人们还经常说有冷颤的感觉。Salimpoor团队及其他人已经找到证据，听音乐的过程中，如果这些现象发生，血液就会流向涉及多巴胺分泌的大脑区域。

To solidify the dopamine link, the researchersrecruited(招募) eight music-lovers, who brought to the lab samples of music that gavethem chills of pleasure. Most picks were classical, with some jazz, rock andpopular music mixed in, including Led Zeppelin and Dave Matthews Band. The mos官方真题Officialpular selection was Barbar's Adagio for Strings.

为证实多巴胺联系理论，研究人员招募了八位音乐爱好者，他们带来了使他们极度愉悦的音乐。大多数选择了古典音乐，兼有爵士、摇滚和流行音乐，包括齐柏林飞艇(Led Zeppelin)和大卫马修乐队(Dave Matthews Band)。选得最多的是巴伯(Samuel Barbar)的弦乐柔板(Adagio for Strings)。

After 15 minutes of listening, scientists injected participants with a radioactivesubstance(放射性物质) that binds todopamine receptors. With a machine called a PET scanner, the scientists werethen able to see if that substance simply circulated through listeners' blood,which would indicate that they had already released a lot of dopamine, and thatthe dopamine was tying up all available receptors.

听完15分钟后，科学家为参加者注射能依附多巴胺感受器的放射性物质。通过PET扫描仪，科学家得以观察这些物质是否仅在听者的血液中循环。如果是肯定的话，这意味着他们已经大量分泌巴多胺，并且已经依附可找到的感受器。