Exercise for a Better Brain
Most of the time, your brain is the boss of your muscle—directing how you hit a ball, play the piano, or open a cereal box.
In a study, people who ran for 45 minutes three days a week boosted their levels of a brain-derived neurotrophic(神经营养的)factor, a chemical that acts like fertilizer for new brain cells.
Studies suggest that in younger adults, exercise can add to the overall number of cell in the hippocampus(海马体).
A.Again, a little goes a long way. |
B.Tips have been offered as to how to properly exercise. |
C.After four months of workouts, their scores improves on a memory test. |
D.Besides this, studies have also suggested that dying cells can be cleared with regular exercise. |
E.But when it comes to growing new brain cells, more and more researches show that when you exercise, your muscles take charge. |
F.Exercise also helps keep brain cells alive longer and replaces old cells with new ones. |
G.The more light activity study participants logged, the greater the overall size of their brains. |
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【推荐1】Citisport in Newport
We at Citisport aim to improve sports training and facilities in Newport, giving you more opportunities to try both new and traditional sports.
Golf
We are pleased to be able to offer lessons at Kingsway Golf Centre just outside Newport. These are run by experienced golf professionals, and are held on an all-weather practice area. The adult lessons are open to anyone aged 13 and over, and are suitable for all levels from beginners upwards. These take place on Wednesdays from 3:00 to 4:00 pm over a period of six weeks. Children’s lessons for 7-12 year old are held from 2:00 to 3:00 pm on Saturdays during term time.
Tennis
The Citisport tennis courses provide an opportunity for local people to develop their skills on the brand-new indoor tennis court at Newport Leisure Centre. All equipment can be provided, but please feel free to use your own racket (球拍) if you prefer. Our Starter course is held on Mondays from 7:00 to 8:00 pm, and is for beginners of 12 years and over. Our Improver course, which takes place on Tuesdays from 8:00 to 9:00 pm, is for players with some experience.
Football for girls
By popular request, Citisport is holding another one-day girls-only football course. This aims to give local girls the chance to learn essential skills and develop more advanced ones. The course will take place on Saturday, 9th November from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, and is open to all girls aged 10-14 years living in the Newport area.
Gymnastics
This course is for beginners aged 8-14 and will provide an introduction to basic skills. There is a maximum of six pupils per coach in each class. At the end of the course there is a demonstration for friends and family of all the skills learnt there. The course will take place on Thursdays from 6:00 to 7:00 pm.
1. What can we know about the Citisport golf lessons?A.You can take lessons at Kingsway Golf Centre inside Newport. |
B.The golf lessons can take place only in good weather. |
C.Teenagers can attend golf lessons on Wednesday afternoons. |
D.Children’s lessons usually last 2 or 3 hours on Saturday afternoons. |
A.You can get the skills in an open-air court. |
B.You must take your own racket during the course. |
C.You can take the Monday course if you are a green hand. |
D.You can become an experienced player after the courses. |
A.Golf. | B.Tennis. | C.Football for girls. | D.Gymnastics. |
【推荐2】Whether you prefer solo dancing or being involved in a more formalized program, dancing offers the obvious plus to your physical health. You're not only moving your body in a rhythmic way and expressing feelings but also burning calories in your body and getting a workout for sure.
In a recent study, researchers compared the effects of walking, stretching and dancing on the wiring and gray matter of the aging brain. The result showed dancing had the significantly positive effect.
In the experiment, after volunteers in their 60s and 70s with healthy brains didn't show signs of cognitive (认知的) disorder, researchers placed them in three groups at will. One group walked, another group stretched and did balance training and the last group learned country dancing. The arrangements of the dancing became progressively more challenging over time. They all did the assigned activity for one hour a day, three times a week. After a period of six months, the volunteers' brains were re-scanned and compared to their brains when they had begun their voluntary work.
Agnieszka Burzynska, the study's lead author who is currently a neuroscientist and director of the BRAiN Lab at Colorado State University, found only one group showed a memory improvement — the country dancers. The participants who learned country dancing now had richer white matter in the part of the brain that processed memory. White matter usually breaks down as a person ages, which may lead to cognitive decline. Dancing, therefore, protected the brain from aging-caused neurodegeneration. So, dancing is not just an aerobic activity good for your physical health. It helps your brain, too!
Country dancing, ballroom dancing, tango and waltz are all done with others. When you take part in these dances, you're involved in a beneficial social activity as well. You are also cognitively motivating your brain as you learn the steps of the dances. Dancing therefore might be one of the best physical activities you can choose for brain health.
1. What's the purpose of paragraph 1?A.To add background material. | B.To introduce the topic of the text. |
C.To raise questions about exercise. | D.To present experimental conditions. |
A.They were grouped at random. | B.They were under cognitive decline. |
C.They were all asked to learn dancing. | D.They were all born in the 1960s and 1970s. |
A.The brain function of volunteers. | B.The cognitive disorder of volunteers. |
C.The relationship between age and dancing. | D.The effect of dancing on the volunteers' brains. |
A.How Dancing Affects People's Lifestyle |
B.Why Dancing Is the Best Social Activity |
C.How Dancing Helps People's Brain Health |
D.Why Country Dancing Is Beneficial to People's Health |
【推荐3】Most young people enjoy some forms of physical activity. It may be walking, cycling, or swimming, or in winter, skating or skiing. It may be a game of some forms—football, basketball, hockey, golf or tennis. It may be mountaineering.
Those who have a passion of climbing high and difficult mountains are often looked upon with astonishment. Why are men and women willing to suffer cold and hardship, and to take risks in high mountains? This astonishment is caused, probably, by the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity to which men give their leisure.
Mountaineering is a sport and not a game. There are no man-made rules, as there are for such games as golf and football. There are, of course, rules of different kinds which would be dangerous to ignore, but it is this freedom from man-made rules that makes mountaineering attractive to many people. Those who climb mountains are free to use their own methods.
If we compare mountaineering with other more familiar sports we might think that one big difference is that mountaineering is not a “team game”. We should be mistaken in this. There are, it is true, no “matches” between “teams” of climbers, but when climbers are on a rock face linked by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is obviously teamwork.
The mountain climber knows that he may have to fight forces that are stronger and more powerful than man. He has to fight the forces of nature. His sport requires high mental and physical qualities.
A mountain climber continues to improve his skills year by year. A skier is probably past his best by the age of thirty. But it is not unusual for men of fifty or sixty to climb the highest mountains in the Alps. They may take more time than younger men, but they perhaps climb with more skills and less waste of effort, and they certainly experience equal enjoyment.
1. What sports are popular among people in winter in the passage?A.Soccer and golf. | B.Skiing and skating. |
C.Cycling and hockey. | D.Mountaineering. |
A.Strong emotion. | B.Good way. | C.Better skill. | D.Good reason. |
A.Because it has man-made rules. |
B.Because it is too dangerous for climbers. |
C.Because it can't bring people joy or leisure. |
D.Because it is free for climbers to use their own methods. |
A.Mountaineering is not attractive to people. |
B.Physical quality is more important than mental one for climbers. |
C.A mountain climber passes his best by the age of thirty. |
D.It is possible for an old man of fifty or sixty to climb the Alps. |
A.Sports in winter | B.Team work in climbing |
C.Mountaineering | D.A mountain climber |
【推荐1】Owww! A little girl wails after falling and bumping her knee. Her father rushes over and inspects the leg. “I’ll kiss it and make it better,” he says. The kiss works. The girl sniffles, wipes her eyes, then jumps up and gets back to playing. Her pain is forgotten.
Scenes like this one happen on playgrounds and in homes around the world every day. When a child gets a bump or bruise in Germany, says Ulrike Bingel, “someone will blow the pain away.”
A caring adult can seemingly stop a child’s pain with a puff of air, a kiss or even just a few kind words. Of course, none of these things can repair injured skin. So what’s happening? Doctors call it the placebo effect. It describes what happens when something that should have no effect triggers a real, positive change in someone’s body.
Placebos are a very important part of medical research. To prove that a new medicine works, researchers must show that people taking it improve more than people getting a placebo. This placebo is usually a pill that looks the same as the treatment but contains no medicine. At times a person may feel better after taking a placebo pill, even though the pill did not act on any disease or symptoms.
This placebo response isn’t an illusion. It comes from the brain. A placebo effect can only influence body processes that the brain can modify, such as pain or digestion.
Kathryn Hall, a medical researcher in Boston says, “Placebos don’t do anything for bacteria, but they can change how strongly someone experiences pain or other symptoms.” Other researchers are also trying to figure out why the placebo effect works. Ted Kaptchuk’s group has discovered that placebo treatments work better when a doctor spends more quality time with a patient.
1. Which of the following can be described as placebo effect?A.Taking more responsibilities if promoted. |
B.Not feeling pains in knees after an operation. |
C.Becoming more active after drinking coffee. |
D.Falling fast asleep after taking vitamins labelled as sleeping pills. |
A.To persuade patients to try the placebo pills. | B.To introduce the placebo effect. |
C.To encourage studies on placebo pills. | D.To promote values of real pills. |
A.Power of Placebos | B.Value of Placebo Pills |
C.History of Placebo Research | D.Placebo Effects on Patients |
【推荐2】You listen to music every day. Some music hits your hearts. Some music makes you full of joy.
Music makes you express your emotion
Music is an extremely unique way to develop the capability of memorising. The best example to prove this sentence is that you can easily learn something in the form of songs. The reason behind learning a song quickly is that your mind enjoys music. Whatever your minds enjoy, it keeps it.
Music makes you creative
Music is key to creativity, it helps you in improving you mind by making it more artistic. No matter what the great invention is, it requires art. Creativity and imagination that is fulfilled by music.
Music improves your fine reasoning skills
During a study of children, it was shown that if children are exposed to three or more years of musical training, these same kids performed better.
A.This was the result |
B.Because music is an art of beauty |
C.Music makes you live a better life |
D.Music makes learning more pleasant |
E.Some music makes you burst into tears |
F.You should choose some kind of music with powerful beats |
G.You usually play the music that reflects your thoughts or your emotions |
【推荐3】In science fiction movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, or Passengers, crew members are put into a state of sleep to take year-long journeys to space. Now a new study from Washington University has shown that human hibernation (冬眠) may soon become a reality.
The research team carried out tests on rats—animals that do not naturally hibernate. They first identified a group of neurons (神经元) in a deep brain region, which were found to be involved in controlling body temperature during hibernation. They showed that, in mice, these neurons could be stimulated using ultrasound (超声波), which was delivered through a helmet without causing an injury.
When receiving the ultrasound, the mice showed a drop in body temperature of about 3℃, and their heart rates fell by about 47%. When the ultrasound system was switched off, they woke up again. The result was "surprising and fascinating", said Hong Chen, a professor who led the work.
Researchers are also trying to determine how to employ the power of hibernation to help humans. They believe that it could be key to addressing health conditions like heart disease, and Alzheimer's. Furthermore, hibernation's ability to slow aging, which was observed in bats, could benefit space exploration, enabling longer missions with less food requirements. Research in animals also suggests that bodies of hibernating astronauts might lose less bone and muscle, making them fit and ready to start challenging exploration soon after they wake up.
The scientists now plan to look at how lowered body temperature might affect the cognitive (认知的) abilities of humans. "Our next experiments will test working memory in monkeys. This is important because while astronauts physically hibernate as they fly into deep space, their brain still needs to be working," said Chen.
1. Why are the movies mentioned in the first paragraph?A.To highlight the creativity of filmmakers. |
B.To introduce the topic of human habitation. |
C.To show the popularity of science fiction movies. |
D.To explain the impact of movies on scientific research. |
A.By pausing their heartbeats. |
B.By simulating their brain neurons. |
C.By making them sleep with helmets. |
D.By exposing them to low temperature. |
A.People might no longer suffer from diseases. |
B.People might stay young as long as they wish. |
C.Average people might be able to travel to space. |
D.Astronauts might remain in space for a longer period. |
A.It is extremely challenging to be an astronaut. |
B.There is always a gap between fiction and reality. |
C.The hibernation experiment is far from complete. |
D.The hibernation experiment remains to be tested on astronauts. |