新闻周刊:关于焦虑的新认识(3)（在线收听）

Follow the Brain Circuits

跟随大脑回路

Few scientists have contributed more to our understanding of fear and anxiety than Joseph LeDoux. When he began working on the problem in the 1980s, scientific dogma held that the emotional processing areas of the brain relied on signals that must first pass through the neocortex, the thinking part of the brain—suggesting that emotional reactions come after, and are caused by, our conscious thoughts about a situation.

很少有科学家比约瑟夫·勒杜对我们理解恐惧和焦虑做出的贡献更大。20世纪80年代，他开始研究这个问题，当时的科学教条认为，大脑的情感处理区域依赖于必须先通过大脑思考部分即新大脑皮层的信号，这表明情绪反应是在我们对某一情境的有意识思考之后产生的，并且是由这种有意识思考引起的。

Freud had famously established the notion of "unconscious factors" that play a role in anxiety, but there was no solid science to support the idea—until LeDoux came along. Working with rats, he discovered a new pathway that operates independent of conscious thought. Sensory stimuli could travel directly to a part of the brain known as the amygdala, a primitive structure that serves as the seat of the emotions. The implications were profound. It helped to explain how emotions can overpower our rational minds, why we are sometimes captive to irrational phobias and the mechanism by which it is possible to feel overcome by a deep sense of foreboding and anxiety or "gut feeling" without knowing why.

弗洛伊德建立了“无意识因素”的概念，这一概念在焦虑中起着重要作用，这是出了名的，但直到勒杜出现，才有可靠的科学依据来支持这一观点。通过对老鼠的研究，他发现了一条独立于意识思维的新途径。感官刺激可以直接到达大脑中被称为杏仁核的部分，杏仁核是一种原始的结构，是情绪的所在地。其影响是深远的。它有助于解释情绪如何压倒我们的理性思维，为什么我们有时会被非理性的恐惧所俘虏，以及在不知道为什么的情况下，我们有可能被深深的预感、焦虑或“直觉”所压倒。

The amygdala was evolution's way of allowing humans to gain a few precious extra seconds in dodging an attacking lion or jumping out of the way of an oncoming car. There was a "slow" or "high road" to the mind, which ran through the cortex, the more reasonable part of the brain. And there was a "fast" or "low road" that traveled directly to the defensive and survival oriented areas of the brain, which allow us to react instantaneously—the "fight-or-flight" reflex.

杏仁核是进化的一种方式，它让人类在躲避攻击的狮子或躲避迎面而来的汽车时获得几秒钟宝贵的额外时间。大脑有一条“缓慢”或“高速”之路，这条路穿过大脑皮层，这是大脑中比较合理的部分。有一条“快”或“低”的路直接通向大脑的防御和生存导向区域，这让我们能够立即做出反应——“战斗或逃跑”的反射。

The amygdala helped explain how the human brain processes fear, which is generally triggered by an immediate threat in one's environment. But it didn't entirely explain anxiety, which is what we feel when we are worried about the possibility of misfortune or personal injury at some point in the future.

杏仁核有助于解释人类大脑是如何处理恐惧的，而恐惧通常是由人所处环境中的直接威胁引发的。但这并不能完全解释焦虑，当我们担心未来某一时刻可能发生的不幸或人身伤害时，我们会有这种感觉。