Loneliness makes our brains crave people
孤独让人渴望伙伴
A hungry brain craves food. A lonely brain craves people. A new brain study demonstrates this. After being isolated, it shows, people’s brains perked up at the sight of other people. The action was in the same brain region that revs up when a hungry person sees food.
饥饿的大脑渴求食物，孤独的大脑渴望伙伴。一项新的研究证实了这一点。研究显示，感到孤独的人在看到其他人时大脑会变得活跃。同样地，一个饥饿的人在看到食物时，大脑的这一区域也会变得活跃。
“There’s a ton of research showing loneliness is associated with depression,” says Livia Tomova. She’s a cognitive neuroscientist, someone who studies how the brain produces mental activities. Tomova works at the University of Cambridge in England.
英国剑桥大学认知神经科学家利维娅·托莫娃主要研究大脑如何产生心理活动，她说：“大量研究表明孤独与抑郁存在关联。”
But while scientists know loneliness and depression are related, it’s hard to tell if one causes the other. “Are they depressed because they’re lonely, or lonely because they’re depressed?” she asks. “One way to study that is [to look at] how the brain responds to periods of being alone.”
虽然科学家们知道孤独和抑郁是相关的，但很难判断两者之间是否存在因果关系。她说道：“人们是因为孤独而抑郁的，还是因为抑郁而孤独的？研究这一问题的方法之一是观察人们在独处时的大脑反应。”
When she began this study, Tomova was a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. She and her colleagues recruited 40 people. On one day, the participants had to fast — not eat anything at all — for 10 hours.
托莫娃最早开展这项研究时任职于坎布里奇麻省理工学院。她和她的同事招募了40名志愿者。在研究的第一天，参与者被要求禁食10小时（不吃任何东西）。
On another day, the same people were placed in a room for 10 hours. They couldn’t see anyone. No friends, no family and no social media. They weren’t even allowed to check their email.
在另一天，这些人各自被安排在单独的房间10小时，期间他们看不到任何人，不能与朋友、家人联系，也不能使用社交媒体，他们甚至不能查看电子邮件。
After both days, Tomova and her colleagues put the people in a fMRI machine. It shows activity in the brain by tracking how much blood is flowing to each region.
每天结束后，托莫娃和她的同事利用功能磁共振成象机（通过追踪流向每个区域的血液量来显示大脑的活动）对这些参与者进行了检查。
At the end of each day, the participants showed high activity in a brain area
called the midbrain. The scientists were interested in two small areas within it. One was the substantia nigra pars compacta. The other was the ventral tegmental area. Both areas produce dopamine. It’s a chemical messenger that is important in craving and rewards.
每天结束时，参与者的大脑中脑区域表现为高度活跃。科学家们对其中的两个小区域感兴趣，其一是黑质致密部，其二是腹侧被盖区。这两个区域都能够产生多巴胺，多巴胺是一种在渴望和奖励中很重要的化学信使。
The two areas activated when hungry participants saw pictures of tasty pizza or juicy hamburgers. After the volunteers had been isolated, those brain areas became active when they saw social activities they missed. It might be playing sports or chatting with friends.
当饥肠辘辘的参与者看到美味的披萨或多汁的汉堡的图片时，大脑中这两个区域就会激活。当参与者被隔离在单独的房间错过社交活动时，这些大脑区域就会变得活跃起来，或许是想和朋友做运动或聊聊天了。
The midbrain plays an important part in people’s motivation to seek food or friends. In fact, it responds to food and social signals even when people aren’t hungry or lonely.
中脑在人们产生寻求食物或朋友的想法中扮演着重要的角色。事实上，即使在人们不饿或不孤独的时候，它也会对食物及社交信号做出反应。
But hunger and loneliness increased the reactions and made people’s responses specific to the thing they were missing. And the more hunger or isolation the volunteers said they were experiencing, the stronger the activity in this part of the brain.
但是饥饿和孤独会促进人们的反应，使人们对他们所错过的东西产生更加具体的反应。当志愿者们表示他们越是饿的厉害或感到孤独时，他们大脑这一区域的活动就越强烈。
(全文共413个词)
重难点词汇：
demonstrate [ˈdemənstreɪt] v. 证明；展示；论证
isolate [ˈaɪsəleɪt] v. 隔离；孤立；分离
perk up 活跃起来；振作精神
recruit [rɪˈkruːt] v. 征募；聘用 n. 招聘；新兵
dopamine [ˈdoʊpəmiːn] n. 多巴胺
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