考研英語閱讀:英國女博士患有嗜睡癥

 

Narcoleptic Woman

嗜睡的女人

Dr Allen, 35, a scientist, suffers from bouts of “cataplexy”, a rare symptom of narcolepsy, triggered by strong emotions — such as fear, surprise or laughter.

艾倫是一位博士，今年 35 歲的她患有一種“悴倒癥”疾病。這是一種罕見的嗜睡癥，強(qiáng)烈的情感波折，如恐懼、驚訝和大笑，往往引發(fā)病癥。

The attacks cause her to lose control of her body and she collapses into a deep sleep-although she remains conscious throughout.

這種疾病使艾倫失去對自己身體的控制，雖然她還處于清醒狀態(tài)，但是整個身體已經(jīng)陷入深度睡眠階段。

Each collapse lasts between 30 seconds to five minutes and at its worst Claire can endure up to 100 attacks each day. Claire, from Cambridge, described how she first loses her speech and vision before her body buckles—but she remains completely “awake”.

每一次癥狀發(fā)生都持續(xù) 30 秒到 5 分鐘不等，克萊爾最糟糕的一次經(jīng)歷，一天竟然發(fā)病達(dá)到100次。來自劍橋的克萊爾在發(fā)言中，描述了她第一次失去對身體的控制，但是仍然處于“完全清醒”狀態(tài)時的情景。

She said: “The attacks are caused by any emotional surprise or shock but laughter is definitely the strongest trigger.”

“突然猝倒可能是由于驚訝或震驚等情感波動而引起的，但是大笑絕對是引發(fā)癥狀的最強(qiáng)動因”，她說。

However, the new drug, Xyrem puts Claire into a deep sleep for three-and-a-half hours so she must take a second dose in the middle of the night to get a full seven hours sleep.

然而，新型藥物“Xyrem”可以讓克萊爾進(jìn)入深度睡眠，但也只能連續(xù)睡上三個半小時，所以在半夜她要再吃上一次藥，保證自己可以有 7 個小時的深度睡眠。

She said: “For the last five years I hadn’t slept for more than an hour at a time so the first time I slept for more than three hours it was incredible.”

她說：“在過去的 5 年里，我從來沒有一次睡覺超過一個小時，所以當(dāng)我第一次能獲得3個多小時的睡眠時，我感到難以置信。”

Researchers have found that narcolepsy may be caused by an irregularity to the brain cells which control the sleep hormone hypo- cretin.

研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，嗜睡癥可能是由于控制睡眠的荷爾蒙下視丘分泌素分泌失調(diào)造成的。

An estimated 25,000 people in the UK suffer from narcolepsy but many remain undiagnosed due to the varying nature of the symptoms.

據(jù)估計，英國約有兩萬五千名嗜睡癥患者，但很多人因?yàn)榘Y狀性質(zhì)不同難以確診。

 

 

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