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Science
科學(xué)技術(shù)
The science of stuttering
口吃科學(xué)
Speech therapy
演講療法
Unravelling the mystery of faltering speech
解秘演講時的口吃
Cures worthy of a king
國王應(yīng)該治療
DOWN the ages stuttering has been blamed on many things.
多年來，口吃可以歸咎于許多事。
In the second century Galen pinned it on a dryness of the tongue.
二世紀(jì)時，蓋倫將口吃歸咎于舌頭干燥。
In the 17th, Francis Bacon reckoned a stiff tongue was responsible.
17世紀(jì)，弗朗西斯.培根認(rèn)為僵硬的舌頭應(yīng)對口吃負(fù)責(zé)。
In the 19th, surgeons suggested too large a tongue.
19世紀(jì)，外科醫(yī)生指出是長舌頭造成了口吃。
In the 20th, parental neglect and even an unfulfilled urge for oral sex had their moments of fame.
到了20世紀(jì)時，父母的忽略，甚至是未實(shí)現(xiàn)的口交被認(rèn)為是造成口吃的原因。
The suggested remedies were just as diverse.
矯正口吃的建議方法也多種多樣。
Galen thought wrapping the patient's tongue in a cloth soaked in lettuce juice might help.
蓋倫認(rèn)為將病人的舌頭用浸過萵苣汁的布包起來可能有幫助。
Bacon recommended wine.
培根的推薦是酒。
The Victorians wielded scalpels. The psychiatrists, the couch. None of it worked.
維多利亞時代的外科醫(yī)生們揮舞手術(shù)刀。精神科醫(yī)生的建議是沙發(fā)。這些方法都不奏效。
These days, as delegates to the AAAS meeting in Washington, DC, heard, the talk is of brain anatomy and genes.
幾天來，在華盛頓出席美國科學(xué)促進(jìn)會的代表們都聽說了大腦解剖和基因與講話有關(guān)。
Luc De Nil, of the University of Toronto, has been poring over stutterers' brains using positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging.
多倫多大學(xué)的盧克.德.尼爾已經(jīng)用正電子發(fā)射斷層掃描和功能性磁共振成像仔細(xì)研究了口吃者的大腦。
He has found that parts of the brain linked to the production of speech are more active in stutterers than non-stutterers, while those involved in perceiving sounds are less so.
他發(fā)現(xiàn)大腦的一部分與生成話語的區(qū)域相連，口吃者的這個區(qū)域要比非口吃者活躍，而感知聲音的那些區(qū)域則是非口吃者更活躍。
The two sorts of brain look different, too.
兩者的大腦看起來也不同。
Stutterers tend, for instance, to have more densely packed grey matter in the areas associated with processing and producing sounds.
比如，有關(guān)處理和產(chǎn)生聲音的區(qū)域上覆蓋的灰質(zhì)，口吃者要更密集。
Such differences in activity and anatomy, though, must have deeper causes.
活動性和解剖上的不同一定存在著更深層的原因。
And, in time-honoured fashion, there is a debate about whether those causes are genetic or environmental.
而這些原因是基因上的還是環(huán)境上的，其爭論的歷史也相當(dāng)悠久。
Dennis Drayna of America's National Institutes of Health argued to the meeting that persistent stuttering is at least partly a matter of genes.
美國國家衛(wèi)生研究院的丹尼斯.德雷納在會上說道，持續(xù)的口吃至少一部分原因是基因問題。
It runs in families.
在家族中遺傳。
Studies of twins suggest a genetic component larger than those known to be involved in high cholesterol and osteoporosis.
對雙胞胎的研究表明這個遺傳因素要比膽固醇和骨質(zhì)疏松癥的遺傳因素高。
At least two studies of adopted children suggest that those whose adoptive parents stutter are no more likely to develop the impediment than those taken on by non-stutterers.
至少，有兩個關(guān)于被收養(yǎng)孩子的研究表明，孩子是否會發(fā)展成為口吃者，其可能性，收養(yǎng)者是口吃者并不比非口吃者大。
To discover which genes might be responsible, Dr Drayna looked at 44 Pakistani families.
為了發(fā)現(xiàn)哪種基因與引發(fā)口吃有關(guān)，德雷納博士對44個巴基斯坦家庭進(jìn)行了調(diào)查。
Marriage between cousins is common in Pakistan, and such inbreeding leads to a high incidence of genetic disorders.
近親結(jié)婚在巴基斯坦很普遍，而這種近親交配引發(fā)遺傳性疾病的發(fā)病率很高。
Dr Drayna's analysis suggests that stuttering is linked to mutation of a gene called GNPTAB—a finding confirmed when the same mutation was subsequently discovered in a number of stutterers from Pakistan and India who were unrelated to the original group of families.
德雷納博士的分析表明口吃與一種叫做GNPTAB的基因突變有關(guān)—隨后，在巴基斯坦和印度非近親結(jié)婚的家庭中發(fā)現(xiàn)了許多口吃者也有類似的突變時，這個發(fā)現(xiàn)得到了證實(shí)。
In January Dr Drayna and his colleagues published a paper in the Journal of Human Genetics tracing the responsible mutation back almost 600 generations, to a common ancestor who would have lived around 14,000 years ago.
1月，德雷納博士和他的同事在《人類遺傳學(xué)雜志》上發(fā)表了一篇論文，追蹤了約600代人中發(fā)生過此種突變的人，他們的祖先是同一個人，生活在約14,000年前。
Further study of South Asians has shown that mutations in two other genes, GNPTG and NAGPA, are found in individuals who stutter, but not in non-stutterers.
對南亞人的進(jìn)一步研究表明，另兩大基因也存在突變—GNPTG 和 NAGPA,在口吃者中發(fā)現(xiàn)了這兩種基因，而非口吃者中沒有。
All three affected genes encode enzymes that regulate lysosomes, the cell's waste-disposal units.
所有這三種受影響的基因通過編碼酶調(diào)節(jié)溶解體，溶解體是細(xì)胞廢物處理單元。
Two of the encode mutations involved are also known to cause a rare disease called mucolipidosis.
其中有兩種編碼突變也會引發(fā)粘脂沉積癥—一種罕見的疾病。
Severe mucolipidosis is fatal within ten years of birth.
在出生的十年內(nèi)，嚴(yán)重的粘脂沉積癥是致命的。
Even the mild variety has symptoms that include abnormal skeletal development and, sometimes, slight mental retardation.
即使是溫和一點(diǎn)的，也會引發(fā)許多癥狀，包括骨骼發(fā)育異常，有時還會有輕度精神發(fā)育遲滯。
Fortunately for stutterers, close examination of those with the relevant mutations reveals no symptoms of mucolipidosis.
在對相關(guān)突變進(jìn)行仔細(xì)檢查后，并沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)任何粘脂沉積癥的癥狀，這對口吃者來說是幸運(yùn)的。
Dr Drayna suspects that both conditions are caused by misfolding of the enzymes in question, but that the details are different.
德雷納博士懷疑這兩種病狀都是由錯誤折疊酶引起，但細(xì)節(jié)有所不同。
With stutterers, he thinks, a specific group of brain cells involved in speech production is, for an unknown reason, uniquely sensitive to the enzymatic glitch—perhaps producing the patterns seen by Dr De Nil in his brain scanners.
他認(rèn)為，對口吃者來說，參與話語生成的一組特定的腦細(xì)胞，不明原因的對酶毛刺有一種獨(dú)特的敏感—也許將德.尼爾博士在腦部掃描中看到的結(jié)構(gòu)生成出來能夠解釋這個現(xiàn)象。
To investigate further, Dr Drayna is now attempting to splice human stutter-causing genes into the DNA of mice.
為了進(jìn)一步調(diào)查，德雷納博士正嘗試將引發(fā)人類口吃的基因拼接到老鼠的DNA中。
That, of course, raises the question of what a stuttering mouse sounds like.
當(dāng)然，又有了另一個問題，口吃的老鼠聽起來像什么呢。
To the human ear, it may not sound like anything.
人類的耳朵聽來，這個聲音可能什么都像。
Many murine squeakings are too high-pitched to be perceptible.
許多小鼠的尖叫聲非常高亢，難以感覺它是否口吃。
But ultrasonic detectors should deal with that.
也許高聲波探測儀可以解決這個問題。
With luck, the causes of stuttering should soon be understood better.
幸運(yùn)的話，引發(fā)口吃的原因很快就會被更好的理解了。
Whether that results in treatments more effective than lettuce juice and wine is another matter.
而治療方法是否比萵苣汁和酒更有效，則要另當(dāng)別論了。
