2022年经济学人 学打鼓对自闭症孩子有帮助（在线收听）

Science & Technology

科技板块

Music therapy

音乐疗法

A drum, a drum, Clem Burke doth come

伴着鼓声Clem Burke来了

Learning drumming can help teenagers with the behavioural problems

学习击鼓可以帮助青少年解决行为问题

Music is good for the health.

音乐对健康有好处。

And drumming may be best of all.

打鼓可能是最好的选择。

As well as being physically demanding, it requires people to synchronise their limbs and to react to outside stimuli, such as what the rest of the band is up to.

除了对身体的要求外，它还要求人们同步四肢，并对外部刺激做出反应，比如乐队其他成员正在做什么。

It is particularly helpful for children who have emotional and behavioural difficulties.

这对情绪和行为障碍的儿童特别有帮助。

Researchers at the Clem Burke Drumming Project -- an organisation named after Blondie’s drummer, who was one of its founders -- have shown that teaching such children to drum helps them to control their reactions more generally, to focus more effectively on tasks they are given, and to communicate better with other people.

克莱姆·伯克击鼓项目的研究人员表明，教这些孩子击鼓可以帮助他们更广泛地控制自己的反应，更有效地专注于任务，并更好地与他人交流。该组织以布朗迪的鼓手命名，他也是该组织的创始人之一。

The project’s latest work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team led by Marie-Stephanie Cahart of King’s College, London, goes a step further.

该项目的最新成果发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上，由伦敦国王学院的玛丽-斯蒂芬妮·卡哈特领导的团队进行了进一步研究。

It looks at the neurological changes which accompany these shifts.

它着眼于伴随这些变化的神经变化。

Ms Cahart and her colleagues recruited 36 autistic teenagers and split them into two groups.

卡哈特女士和她的同事招募了36名患有自闭症的青少年，并将他们分成两组。

One lot had drum lessons twice a week for eight weeks.

其中一组每周上两次击鼓课，持续八周。

The others did not.

其他人则没有。

At the beginning and end of the project everyone was asked to stay still for 45 minutes in a functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fmri) machine, to see how the activity of their brains had changed.

在项目开始和结束时，每个人都被要求在功能性磁共振成像(FMRI)机器中保持45分钟不动，看看他们的大脑活动是如何变化的。

Their behaviour, as reported by their guardians, was also recorded.

根据监护人报告，他们的行为会被记录下来。

As expected, most of the drumming group showed positive behavioural changes.

不出所料，击鼓组的大多数人表现出积极的行为变化。

And these were indeed reflected in their brains.

这些确实反映在他们的大脑中。

The fmri scans showed that several clusters of connectivity between parts of those brains had strengthened during the experiment.

功能磁共振成像扫描显示，在实验过程中，这些大脑部分之间的几个连接簇得到了加强。

In particular, two regions involved in attention control, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the right inferior frontal gyrus, formed strong links, respectively, with places associated with introspection and with areas involved in deciphering facial expressions.

特别是，负责注意力控制的两个区域，即右侧背外侧前额叶皮质和右侧额下回，分别与内省相关的区域和与解读面部表情的区域形成了强大的联系。

These changes in the brain’s “wetware” thus nicely match the changes in behaviour which learning to drum induces.

因此，大脑“湿器”的这些变化很好地匹配了学习击鼓所引起的行为变化。

Not a surprise, perhaps.

也许这并不令人意外。

But a gratifying confirmation of drumming’s power to heal.

但令人欣慰的是，确实证实了击鼓的治愈能力。