【英语时差8,16】一种能读懂你心思的机器

 

The electroencephalograph, or EEG, is a machine commonly used by doctors and researchers who want to know what the brain is doing without having to open up someone's head and look inside.   

In fact, even if you were to look inside the head, you still couldn't see the brain "doing" anything -- the energy brains use to operate is not visible. Nevertheless, brain activity can be recorded on an EEG just by taping a few electrodes to someone's scalp. How is that?

 

The answer is that the brain runs on electrical energy. Individual brain cells, called neurons, regularly discharge tiny electrical impulses between themselves: this is the way they communicate. All these electrical impulses add up to create what are called "brain waves."

 

An EEG relies on the fact that this electrical energy can be transmitted along a thin metal wire. By placing electrodes on someone's scalp, you can get the electricity from their brain to travel across the wire and into the EEG, where it is charted on a graph. Then, by looking at a large number of graphs taken when test subjects are doing different things -- such as reading, resting, listening to music, or sleeping -- researchers can distinguish different characteristic brain wave patterns. Once there is a standard of healthy patterns to refer to, it then becomes possible to recognize abnormal brain waves that signal something going awry¹.

 

It isn't really reading your mind, but the EEG is a machine that can read the overall electrical state of your brain. Since its creation in 1929, the EEG has proved an invaluable² tool in understanding sleep disorders³, in diagnosing patients for epilepsy and brain tumors, and in a whole host of other medical areas.  

1 awry   

adj.扭曲的，错的

参考例句：

• She was in a fury over a plan that had gone awry. 计划出了问题，她很愤怒。
• Something has gone awry in our plans.我们的计划出差错了。

2 invaluable   

adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的

参考例句：

• A computer would have been invaluable for this job.一台计算机对这个工作的作用会是无法估计的。
• This information was invaluable to him.这个消息对他来说是非常宝贵的。

3 disorders   

n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调

参考例句：

• Reports of anorexia and other eating disorders are on the increase. 据报告，厌食症和其他饮食方面的功能紊乱发生率正在不断增长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The announcement led to violent civil disorders. 这项宣布引起剧烈的骚乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》