評論
打印
Follow the Brain Circuits
跟隨大腦回路
Few scientists have contributed more to our understanding of fear and anxiety than Joseph LeDoux. When he began working on the problem in the 1980s, scientific dogma held that the emotional processing areas of the brain relied on signals that must first pass through the neocortex, the thinking part of the brain—suggesting that emotional reactions come after, and are caused by, our conscious thoughts about a situation.
很少有科學家比約瑟夫·勒杜對我們理解恐懼和焦慮做出的貢獻更大。20世紀80年代，他開始研究這個問題，當時的科學教條認為，大腦的情感處理區域依賴于必須先通過大腦思考部分即新大腦皮層的信號，這表明情緒反應是在我們對某一情境的有意識思考之后產生的，并且是由這種有意識思考引起的。
Freud had famously established the notion of "unconscious factors" that play a role in anxiety, but there was no solid science to support the idea—until LeDoux came along. Working with rats, he discovered a new pathway that operates independent of conscious thought. Sensory stimuli could travel directly to a part of the brain known as the amygdala, a primitive structure that serves as the seat of the emotions. The implications were profound. It helped to explain how emotions can overpower our rational minds, why we are sometimes captive to irrational phobias and the mechanism by which it is possible to feel overcome by a deep sense of foreboding and anxiety or "gut feeling" without knowing why.
弗洛伊德建立了“無意識因素”的概念，這一概念在焦慮中起著重要作用，這是出了名的，但直到勒杜出現，才有可靠的科學依據來支持這一觀點。通過對老鼠的研究，他發現了一條獨立于意識思維的新途徑。感官刺激可以直接到達大腦中被稱為杏仁核的部分，杏仁核是一種原始的結構，是情緒的所在地。其影響是深遠的。它有助于解釋情緒如何壓倒我們的理性思維，為什么我們有時會被非理性的恐懼所俘虜，以及在不知道為什么的情況下，我們有可能被深深的預感、焦慮或“直覺”所壓倒。
The amygdala was evolution's way of allowing humans to gain a few precious extra seconds in dodging an attacking lion or jumping out of the way of an oncoming car. There was a "slow" or "high road" to the mind, which ran through the cortex, the more reasonable part of the brain. And there was a "fast" or "low road" that traveled directly to the defensive and survival oriented areas of the brain, which allow us to react instantaneously—the "fight-or-flight" reflex.
杏仁核是進化的一種方式，它讓人類在躲避攻擊的獅子或躲避迎面而來的汽車時獲得幾秒鐘寶貴的額外時間。大腦有一條“緩慢”或“高速”之路，這條路穿過大腦皮層，這是大腦中比較合理的部分。有一條“快”或“低”的路直接通向大腦的防御和生存導向區域，這讓我們能夠立即做出反應——“戰斗或逃跑”的反射。
The amygdala helped explain how the human brain processes fear, which is generally triggered by an immediate threat in one's environment. But it didn't entirely explain anxiety, which is what we feel when we are worried about the possibility of misfortune or personal injury at some point in the future.
杏仁核有助于解釋人類大腦是如何處理恐懼的，而恐懼通常是由人所處環境中的直接威脅引發的。但這并不能完全解釋焦慮，當我們擔心未來某一時刻可能發生的不幸或人身傷害時，我們會有這種感覺。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
