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本文給2016考研同學(xué)推薦的英語(yǔ)泛讀文章是“基因與安慰劑效應(yīng)”。這是一篇生物醫(yī)學(xué)話題的文章，也是考研英語(yǔ)應(yīng)該準(zhǔn)備的重點(diǎn)題材。本文的觀點(diǎn)認(rèn)為：安慰劑效應(yīng)也許取決于個(gè)體DNA(The effectiveness of a placebo may depend on someone’s DNA)，這是一個(gè)非常有意思的新發(fā)現(xiàn)。來(lái)看一下具體內(nèi)容：

Give someone who is sick a sugar pill that you have told him is a powerful drug, and it will often make him feel better. Even if you tell him what it really is, he may still feel better. The placebo effect, as this phenomenon is known—from the Latin for “I shall please”—is one of the strangest things in medical science. It is a boon to doctors and a bane of those running clinical trials, who must take account of it in their designs. But how it works is obscure.

給病人一粒糖片，而你告訴他這是一顆特效藥，這粒糖片常常能使他感覺(jué)好許多。即使你告訴他這顆藥的真相，他也許依舊感覺(jué)不錯(cuò)。安慰劑效應(yīng)——該詞來(lái)源于拉丁語(yǔ)“我將安慰”，被認(rèn)為是醫(yī)學(xué)中最奇怪的現(xiàn)象之一。它對(duì)醫(yī)生來(lái)說(shuō)是福利，而對(duì)那些臨床試驗(yàn)工作者卻是煩惱，因?yàn)樵谒麄兊脑囼?yàn)設(shè)計(jì)中必須考慮到這一因素。至于安慰劑效應(yīng)是如何起作用的，仍難以解釋。

One thing that is known about the placebo effect is that it involves several brain systems, each under the control of a particular type of messenger molecule, called a neurotransmitter. These systems, like everything else in the body, are regulated by genes. This has led some researchers to ask whether different versions of the genes in question might modulate a person’s susceptibility to placebos.

關(guān)于安慰劑效應(yīng)，已知的一點(diǎn)是它涉及到了幾個(gè)大腦系統(tǒng)，每一個(gè)都由一種特殊的信使分子控制，稱為“神經(jīng)遞質(zhì)”。和機(jī)體其他系統(tǒng)一樣，這些系統(tǒng)也是由基因控制。這讓一些研究者產(chǎn)生了疑問(wèn)：涉及到的不同基因版本是否可能調(diào)節(jié)個(gè)體對(duì)安慰劑的敏感性。

A review of these researchers’ studies, published recently in Trends in Molecular Medicine by one of them, Kathryn Hall of Harvard Medical School, and her colleagues, suggests genes do indeed seem to matter. Dr Hall looked for links between the placebo effect’s strength and certain mutations, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), in which a single DNA “letter” in a gene is changed.

最近，由哈佛大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)院研究人員凱瑟琳·霍爾(Kathryn Hall)和她同事一同發(fā)表在《分子醫(yī)學(xué)進(jìn)展》上的一篇綜述表明：基因確實(shí)很關(guān)鍵。霍爾博士尋找了安慰劑效應(yīng)強(qiáng)度和某些基因突變之間的聯(lián)系，這些突變被稱為“單核苷酸多態(tài)性”(SNPs)，其基因中單個(gè)DNA的堿基“字母”序列發(fā)生改變。

這類題材的泛讀是非常有必要的，可以增加我們對(duì)相關(guān)文化背景信息的了解，從而順利地理解文章。考研英語(yǔ)的復(fù)習(xí)需要持之以恒的努力，希望大家再接再厲，考研任重道遠(yuǎn)，堅(jiān)持才會(huì)成功，加油！