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A nightlight may keep those monsters under the bed. But it may also open the door to the blues. Because a new study reveals that animals exposed to light all night long show signs of clinical depression.
開燈睡覺也許能讓你減輕恐懼感，但也有可能讓你變得抑郁消沉。一項新的研究表明，那些整夜暴露在光照條件下的動物顯示出情緒低落消沉的跡象。
If you have access to electricity, you no doubt switch on a lamp, maybe even watch a little TV, after the sun goes down. But our bodies use cues about lightness and dark to regulate our hormones and of course our sleep cycles. So what might these extra photons be doing to our health?
如果有電，在天黑之后，你無疑會開上一盞燈，甚至會看上一會兒電視。而我們的身體會依據光線條件來調整內分泌，當然，還有睡眠。那么，這些多余的光照，會對我們的健康造成怎樣的影響呢？
To find out, scientists housed mice in a room where the lights were always on. After three weeks, they found that mice who lived in the spotlight showed symptoms of depression, more so than mice who enjoyed eight hours of darkness at night. Interestingly, mice who could escape the light by ducking into a dark tube also escaped the worst of the depression. The findings were presented on October 21st at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, and they'll be published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research in December.
為了搞清楚上述問題，科學家們讓小白鼠住在一個總有光照的空間里。三周之后，他們發現這些小白鼠顯現出情緒低落消沉的癥狀。與之相對的，另一組每天有八小時全黑條件的小白鼠則安然無恙。有趣的是，那些通過鉆到管道中避免光照的小白鼠也躲過了一劫。這一發現10月21日發布于芝加哥舉辦的神經系統科學學會的年會上，也會刊載10月期的《行為大腦研究》雜志上。
So flip that light switch at your own risk. Because the artificial brightness that helps keep us up could also bring us down.
因此，為了你自己的健康，還是關上燈睡覺吧。人造的光亮給我們帶來許多歡樂，卻也讓我們付出著代價。
