我运动 故我在

跑跑兔

几乎每个人都认为运动可以帮助我们愉悦心情，原因何在？一项研究结论给出了答案。本月出版了一份挪威研究人员的研究报告。该报告称：与那些即使山地和海峡近在咫尺也不愿下车开展运动的人相比，那些参加运动，即使运动量很小的人的心理健康都获得了明显的改善和提高。上个月，在美国运动医学学院年会上提出的一项单独研究显示：为期六周的自行车或举重训练能缓解女性焦虑症患者的临床症状，而且这种举重训练能有效地减少暴躁情绪。或许是因为这些女士认为现在他们有能力回击那些胆敢惹怒她们的人或事啦。（这是我个人的解释）
然而要从细胞水平的深度来研究运动对焦虑和其他情绪的影响却遇到了很大的困难因为人类的大脑有太多不可获知的奥秘和太过于复杂。但是，国家心理健康研究院最近的一项动物实验为研究运动与情感的关系提供了一些令人激动的新线索，而且还有一个令人欣慰的消息就是似乎不需要太大的运动量就能获得一个持续的好心情。

For the experiment, researchers at the institute gathered two types of male mice. Some were strong and aggressive; the others were less so. The alpha mice got private cages. Male mice in the wild are territorial loners. So when then the punier mice were later slipped into the same cages as the aggressive rodents, separated only by a clear partition, the big mice acted like thugs. They employed every animal intimidation technique and, during daily, five-minute periods when the partition was removed, had to be restrained from harming the smaller mice, which, in the face of such treatment, became predictably twitchy and submissive.

为了开展这个实验，国家研究院的研究人员收集了两种不同类型的雄性老鼠。一些老鼠很强壮而且好斗，另外的一些老鼠要温顺些。阿尔法老鼠被关进单独的笼子。雄性老鼠在野外是领地的独处者。当把一些瘦弱的老鼠放入阿尔法老鼠的笼子时，这些阿尔法老鼠表现的就像暴徒一样非常的具有进攻性，只有用分隔物才能将它们分隔开来。研究者使用了动物胁迫技术，他们每天将分隔物移开5分钟，而且在这段时间内保证弱小的老鼠不受到伤害。可以预见，老鼠面对这样的待遇，会变得焦躁不安和唯命是从。

After two weeks of cohabitation, many of these weaker mice were nervous wrecks. When the researchers tested them in a series of stressful situations away from the cages, the mice responded with, as the scientists call it, “anxiety-like behavior.” They froze or ran for dark corners. Everything upset them. “We don’t use words like ‘depressed’ to describe the animals’ condition,” said Michael L. Lehmann, a postdoctoral fellow at the institute and lead author of the study. But in effect, those mice had responded to the repeated stress by becoming depressed.

两周这样的同居生活后，很多弱小的老鼠精神受到了严重的损伤。当研究者们远离鼠笼用一系列应急情境测试这些老鼠时，它们表现出科学家称之为“类焦虑行为”的反应。它们要么一动不动，要么极力奔跑寻找黑暗角落。任何事情都会使它们烦躁不安。该项研究的第一作者，国家研究院博士后迈克尔-莱曼说：“我无法用像消沉这样的词汇来形容老鼠们的状态。”但是事实上，这些老鼠因为对反复的应激刺激做出反应已经变得消沉了。

But that was not true for a subgroup of mice that had been allowed access to running wheels and nifty, explorable tubes in their cages for several weeks before they were housed with the aggressive mice. These mice, although wisely submissive when confronted by the bullies, rallied nicely when away from them. They didn’t freeze or cling to dark spaces in unfamiliar situations. They explored. They appeared to be, Dr. Lehmann said, “stress-resistant.”

但是另一个亚组的老鼠情况就不是这样啦。这些老鼠在被和好斗老鼠关在一起之前允许它们自由的地在跑步轮和纤细贯通的管道中跑来跑去好几周。尽管当这些老鼠面对威胁时表现出明智的顺从，但是当他们离开那些好斗老鼠后获得了很好的恢复。在陌生环境中，它们并没有一动不动或是躲在阴暗区域。它们在探索。它们表现出了莱曼博士称之为“应激抵抗”的行为。

“In people, we know that repeated applications of stress can lead to anxiety disorders and depression,” Dr. Lehmann said. “But one of the mysteries” of mental illness “is why some people respond pathologically to stress and some seem to be stress-resistant.”

莱曼博士指出：“对于人类来说，反复的应激会导致焦虑和抑郁。但是对于精神疾病我们还有一个未解开的谜团就是为什么有的人面对应激会产生病态的反应，而有的人似乎会出现应激抵抗。”

To discern what was different, physiologically, about the stress-resistant mice, the scientists looked at brain cells using stains and other techniques. They determined that neurons in part of the rodents’ medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain involved in emotional processing in animals and people, had been firing often and rapidly in recent weeks, as had neurons in other, linked parts of the brain, including the amygdala, which is known to handle feelings of fear and anxiety.

为了查明具有应激抵抗能力的老鼠在生理学上和别的老鼠有什么不同，科学家们运用细胞染色和其他技术观察了这些老鼠的脑细胞。他们确定这些啮齿动物的位于视前内侧核（动物和人类大脑中的一块区域，主要参与控制情感活动）的神经元在最近几周经常而快速地被刺激。

The animals that had not run before moving in with the mean mice showed much less neuronal activity in these portions of the brain.

那些在被和好斗老鼠关在一起之前没有跑步的老鼠的大脑视前内测核的神经元的活性要低得多。

Dr. Lehmann said that he believed that the running was key to the exercised animals’ ability to bounce back from their unpleasant housing conditions.

莱曼博士说他相信跑步是“运动过的老鼠”能从不愉快居住环境中恢复过来的关键所在。

Of course, as we all know, mice are not people. But the scientists believe that this particular experiment is a fair representation of human interpersonal relations, Dr. Lehmann said. Hierarchies, marked by bullying and resulting stress,  are found among people all the time. Think of your own most dysfunctional office job. (Interestingly, the same experiment cannot be conducted on female mice, who like being housed together, Dr. Lehmann said, so he and his colleagues are testing a female-centric version, in which “cage mates are swapped out continuously,” to the consternation and grief of the female mice left behind.)

Perhaps best of all, Dr. Lehmann does not believe that hours of daily exercise are needed or desirable to achieve emotional resilience. The mice in his lab ran only when and for as long as they wished, over the course of several weeks. Other animal experiments have intimated that too much exercise could contribute to anxiety, and Dr. Lehmann agrees that that outcome is possible. Moderate levels of exercise seem to provide the most stress-relieving benefits, he said. Dr. Lehmann does not have a car and walks everywhere, and although he lives in Washington, a cauldron of stress induction, he describes himself as a “pretty calm guy.”

莱曼博士指出：当然，我们都知道，老鼠是不同于人类的。但是这个特别的实验对研究人类的人际关系还是具有代表性的。由于等级的存在，欺凌和组合应激在人群中还是经常存在的。想想，你是否经常不能处理好办公室里的人际关系。莱曼博士补充道：很有意思，我们这个实验不能在喜欢群居的雌性老鼠中间开展。我和我的同事们正在开展一个以雌性老鼠为中心的实验，在这个实验里，雌性老鼠们的室友会经常被调换这样就能使这些雌老鼠们觉得惊讶和悲伤。莱曼博士并不认为每天都去运动对于拥有好心情是必要的。在实验的几个星期里，他实验室里的老鼠们什么时候去跑步，跑多长时间完全是由老鼠们自己的意愿决定的。此外，其他实验也暗示过度的锻炼也会导致焦虑。莱曼博士也对此表示赞同。他说：适度的运动似乎对缓解压力是最有效的。莱曼博士没有汽车，外出经常走路。尽管他住在华盛顿这样一个充满压力的大锅炉里，可他经常说我是一个非常“冷静的人”。
http://article.yeeyan.org/view/42109/20553

看风景的008

浮生如梦，只心脏激烈跳动时，才感受到自己是活生生的血肉之躯。

chengfei8006

坐着沙发看此贴，较爽！人的事儿总拿老鼠试过来试过去，有点。。。。。。。。。

yoshuya

学习了！！！

江鳥飛

运动确实能给我们带来好心情

竹径

学习。。。。

victorljh

心情已变好了很多

bmx117

早就发现了，所以不开心的时候，就去跑个步，打个球，忘记不开心的。

冬天笑

学习了 ............

whuiseee

渐渐地爱上跑步了

长跑观世界

几天不跑步就好象人生了病似的。