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It’s time to go again to the A Moment of Science mailbag. A listener writes:
又到了科学一刻听众的来信时间。一位听众写道：

Dear A Moment of Science,
亲爱的《科学一刻》，

I’m not a math person. In fact, anytime I have to deal with numbers, let alone solve an actual math problem??which, thankfully, is not often??it’s almost painful.
我不是很擅长数学。事实上，每次我跟数字一打交道就觉得痛苦不堪，跟别提解决单纯的数学问题了，不过谢天谢地，这种事不常有。

What’s going on?
怎么回事？

First, you should know that you’re certainly not alone. Lots of people suffer from what’s known as math anxiety. And what’s most interesting is that, according to one study, people with very high levels of math anxiety actually experience pain when confronted¹ with a math challenge. Not metaphorical² pain??actual, real pain.
首先，你要知道你绝不孤单。许多人都遭受数学焦虑症的折磨。最有趣的是，有一项研究表明，严重数学焦虑症患者当面对数学挑战时会实实在在经历疼痛。这种疼痛不是一种想象出来的感觉，而是真实的痛感。

OK, but what does that mean? How can math cause pain?
好的，这意味着什么呢？数学怎么可能造成疼痛呢？

All in the brain
存于脑中

It’s all in the brain, of course. The researchers compared fourteen people with high math anxiety to fourteen people with low math anxiety. Each group was given a series of word and math problems while an MRI machine scanned³ their brain activity. Before each problem, either a yellow circle would appear to indicate that they were about to solve a math problem, or a blue square would pop up to signal a word problem.
当然，这与大脑有关。研究人员将14名严重数学焦虑症患者与14名轻度数学焦虑症患者进行对比。每组人员都拿到一系列的文字与数学问题，同时使用核磁共振成像机器对他们的大脑活动进行扫描。在每一个问题出现前，会有一个黄圈出现，指明他们即将解决一个数学问题，或是出现一个蓝色方框，这是表明弹出的是文字问题。

When people with high math anxiety saw the dreaded⁴ yellow circle, the parts of their brain linked to pain perception⁵ lit up like a pinball machine. People with low math anxiety didn’t show much or any activity in that part of the brain.
当严重数学焦虑症患者看到令人惧怕的黄圈时，他们脑部连接痛感的部分立刻如弹球机一般活跃起来。轻度数学焦虑症患者的那部分大脑则没出现太多这种情况，甚至都没有任何反应。

So doing math problems caused real pain. Not exactly. It’s the anticipation⁶ of doing math that lit up the pain sensors⁷. Actually doing math didn’t cause any pain?related brain activity.
因此，解决数学难题真导致真实的疼痛。并非如此。当得知要解决数学难题时，疼痛感知神经即被激活。事实上在做数学题的过程中并没有触动任何让人感知疼痛的脑部活动。