【轻松英文阅读】老年痴呆症

 If you are reading this article and it is not in your native language, then you may be on the road to a healthier brain. According to new research learning to speak another language can delay the onset¹ of dementia by five years.

 

The research was carried out in a multilingual area of India. There, researchers analyzed² the records of more than 600 patients to find out at what age dementia set in. Over half of the patients were multilingual. They discovered that the onset of dementia was much later for the multilingual patients. The results were not affected³ by factors like education level, gender⁴ or economic level.

 

The researchers theorize that bilingual activities require the brain to be in a state of attention. This intense brain activity somehow keeps dementia at bay. They are not sure if other similar intense brain activities such as learning a musical instrument or doing puzzles would have a similar effect.

 

I hope this gives you one more good reason to keep up your English studies.

1 onset   

n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始

参考例句：

• The drug must be taken from the onset of the infection.这种药必须在感染的最初期就开始服用。
• Our troops withstood the onset of the enemy.我们的部队抵挡住了敌人的进攻。

2 analyzed   

v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析

参考例句：

• The doctors analyzed the blood sample for anemia. 医生们分析了贫血的血样。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The young man did not analyze the process of his captivation and enrapturement, for love to him was a mystery and could not be analyzed. 这年轻人没有分析自己蛊惑著迷的过程，因为对他来说，爱是个不可分析的迷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

4 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。