VOA慢速英语--研究使用阿片类药物的人

Studying Opioid Users as They Try to Stop

A patient watched pictures appear one by one: First, a bicycle. Next, a treat: a cupcake. Then a picture of the drug heroin¹.

Researchers followed her brain’s reactions to the sight of the drug that she has tried to stop taking.

U.S. government scientists are starting to study the brains of people caught in the opioid epidemic² in the United States. They want to see if medicines proven to treat substance abuse, like methadone, do more than ease the person’s desire for the drug.

Do these medicines also heal a brain damaged by drug dependency? Which medicine works best for which patient?

Studies have found that three medicines can effectively treat what specialists are calling opioid use disorder³. They are methadone, buprenorphine and extended-release naltrexone

Patients who use methadone or buprenorphine cut their chances of death in half. That is a finding from a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Nora Volkow is the director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA. She is leading the new study.

“The brain responds differently to these medications [methadone, buprenorphine and extended-release naltrexone] than to heroin. It’s not the same,” she says.

Opioid addiction⁴ changes the brain in ways that can make people likely to relapse. They start using the drug again after a period of improvement. Researchers believe these changes lessen⁵ with long-term abstinence.

Volkow thinks medication-based treatment will help those damaged neural⁶ networks start getting back to normal faster.

To study that idea, she needs to compare brain images from people like the woman who stopped using heroin with active users and people who are in the early days of treatment.

“Can we completely recover? I do not know that,” Volkow said. But with the medications, “you’re creating stability” in the brain, she said. That helps train the brain to react to everyday pleasures again.

The problem now is finding enough people willing, and healthy enough, to have their brains scanned for science.

When you find something pleasurable, such as a song or the touch of a loved one, the brain releases a natural chemical called dopamine. It trains the body to remember that it liked something.

That is the brain’s reward system. Opioids can damage it by causing production of more dopamine than nature ever could. Repeated opioid use overloads⁷ nerves in different areas of the brain, including those involved with learning and memory, emotion, judgment⁸ and self-control.

At the same time, the brain slowly releases less dopamine when reacting to other things the person once found pleasurable.

Eventually people seek more of the drug not to get high, but to avoid feeling low.

Drug addiction is a brain disease, “not a choice, not a personality flaw, not a moral failing,” says Jody Glance. She is an addiction specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Glance hopes NIDA’s brain scans will help improve the reaction of public health officials to the opioid crisis. Not offering the medicines to people who need them “is like not offering insulin to someone with diabetes⁹,” she said.

Volkow plans to test a mix of untreated heroin users and patients using different medication-based treatments. The patients go inside brain scanning equipment at the National Institutes of Health’s research hospital.

Her team has screened more than 400 people who showed interest in the study. They have found only about 40 people who met the requirements. Of those, seven are taking part in the program.

The main problem: Those being tested must have no other health problem that might affect the brain’s chemistry or operation.

Volkow said it is worth the struggle to find such rare volunteers if before-and-after scans end up showing truly different looking brains as people get treated.

“You should be able to see it with your eyes, without having to be an expert,” she said.

I'm John Russell.

Words in This Story

epidemic – n. when a disease spreads quickly and affects many people at the same time

relapse – v. a return to bad behavior that you had stopped doing

network – n. a system of interconnected things

stability – n. firmness or strength

scan – v. to examine systematically¹⁰

reward – n. something that is given in return for some service

flaw – n. a small fault or weakness

insulin – n. a substance that your body makes and uses to turn sugar into energy

diabetes – n. a serious disease in which the body cannot properly control the amount of sugar in your blood because it does not have enough insulin

screen – v. to examine methodically in an effort to separate into different groups

1 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

2 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

3 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

4 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

5 lessen   

vt.减少，减轻；缩小

参考例句：

• Regular exercise can help to lessen the pain.经常运动有助于减轻痛感。
• They've made great effort to lessen the noise of planes.他们尽力减小飞机的噪音。

6 neural   

adj.神经的，神经系统的

参考例句：

• The neural network can preferably solve the non- linear problem.利用神经网络建模可以较好地解决非线性问题。
• The information transmission in neural system depends on neurotransmitters.信息传递的神经途径有赖于神经递质。

7 overloads   

使负担太重( overload的第三人称单数 )； 使超载； 使过载； 给…增加负担

参考例句：

• Given these overloads, we can see the working of the rules above. 对于给定的这些重载，我们可以看看上述规则的工作方式。
• The numerous overloads for each data access method have been reduced. 每一个数据访问方法重载的数量被减少了。

8 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

9 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

10 systematically   

adv.有系统地

参考例句：

• This government has systematically run down public services since it took office.这一屆政府自上台以来系统地削减了公共服务。
• The rainforest is being systematically destroyed.雨林正被系统地毀灭。