時差N小時:能讀懂心思的機器

The electroencephalograph, or EEG, is a machinecommonly used by doctors and researchers who wantto know what the brain is doing without having toopen up someone's head and look inside.

腦電圖儀，簡稱EEG，是一種醫(yī)生或研究人員經(jīng)常使用的機器，通過它可以得知人腦如何運轉(zhuǎn)，而不用開啟人的大腦直接進行觀察。

In fact, even if you were to look inside the head,you still couldn't see the brain "doing" anything—theenergy brains use to operate is not visible.Nevertheless, brain activity can be recorded on an EEG just by taping a few electrodes tosomeone's scalp. How is that?

實際上，即使你直接觀察大腦內(nèi)部，仍然看不到大腦如何工作，因為大腦利用能量使身體運轉(zhuǎn)的過程是不可見的。盡管如此，大腦的活動仍可以通過EEG來記錄，操作時只要將一些電極連接到人的頭皮就可以了。

The answer is that the brain runs on electrical energy. Individual brain cells, called neurons,regularly discharge tiny electrical impulses between themselves: this is the way theycommunicate. All these electrical impulses add up to create what are called "brain waves."

使它如此神奇的原因在于大腦依靠電運作。單個的大腦細胞叫做神經(jīng)元，神經(jīng)元定期相互釋放微小的電子脈沖：這就是信息傳遞的方式。所有的這些電子脈沖疊加在一起形成了我們所說的腦電波。

An EEG relies on the fact that this electrical energy can be transmitted along a thin metalwire. By placing electrodes on someone's scalp, you can get the electricity from their brain totravel across the wire and into the EEG, where it is charted on a graph. Then, by looking at alarge number of graphs taken when test subjects are doing different things—such as reading,resting, listening to music, or sleeping—researchers can distinguish different characteristicbrain wave patterns. Once there is a standard of healthy patterns to refer to, it then becomespossible to recognize abnormal brain waves that signal something going awry.

EEG正是基于電能通過細金屬線傳輸?shù)脑碇瞥?。通過把電極連接到被測者的頭皮，大腦中的電能就能通過電線到達EEG，然后被制成圖表。然后，測試不同對象做不同的事情，比如看書、休息、聽音樂、或者睡眠時的腦電波并繪制成圖表。通過觀察這些大量圖表，研究人員就可以區(qū)分不同腦電波模式特點。只要設(shè)置一個正常模式作為參考，那么就有可能識別異常的腦電波信號。

It isn't really reading your mind, but the EEG is a machine that can read the overallelectrical state of your brain. Since its creation in 1929, the EEG has proved an invaluable toolin understanding sleep disorders, in diagnosing patients for epilepsy and brain tumors, and in awhole host of other medical areas.

EEG這種機器并不能真的讀懂你的心思，但它能全面觀察你的腦電波信號狀況。自從在1929年被發(fā)明以來，EEG被公認為研究睡眠紊亂、診斷癲癇和腦瘤和其它醫(yī)學領(lǐng)域的大多數(shù)疾病的得力助手。