1 . Picture this: you’re having trouble sleeping or your digestive system is playing up, so you go to your doctor expecting some pills. But, instead, you walk away with a ticket to the ballet or instructions to join a choir(唱诗班).
This is social prescribing(处方), and it’s taking off in a big way with hundreds of practices in England regularly referring their patients to take part in cultural activities, with a focus on prevention, early intervention, and management of long-term illness.
“Social prescribing can enable people to manage existing health problems, to connect and to grow in confidence,” says Pandya. As well as this, the arts can lower daily stress through even very short amounts of arts engagement each day such as listening to music. Even simply reading a book has numerous positive benefits. It can reduce stress, promote self-reflection, strengthen social skills, and increase knowledge, which can have an impact on educational and career success.
But why are cultural experiences so effective at improving your well-being? Art in any form, whether creating or observing, reduces the stress hormone(荷尔蒙). It also releases the feelgood hormones, which help you combat stress and pain. In a series of pioneering experiments, professors at UCL examined volunteers’ brains as they looked at 28 images. They found that the same part of the brain that gets excited when you fall in love with someone is stimulated when you look at works of art. Viewing art also causes an increase in dopamine(多巴胺), leading to feelings of intense pleasure.
Debs had been struggling with her mental health and was referred to art therapy courses. “Social prescribing addressed my wellness rather than my illness. The focus was on what I could do well, not what all the problems were. It allowed me time to heal myself. It totally transformed my life.”
1. What’s the function of the 1st paragraph?| A．To introduce a choir. | B．To show a picture. | C．To introduce the topic. | D．To attract readers’ attention. |
| A．doing an experiment. | B．listening to music. | C．joining a choir. | D．reading a poem. |
| A．The reason why art reduces the stress hormone. |
| B．The finding of a series of pioneering experiments. |
| C．The finding that the same part of the brain is stimulated. |
| D．The reason why art improves one’s health and happiness. |
| A．Grateful. | B．Concerned. | C．Discontent. | D．Neutral. |
2 . The human spine doesn’t just help us stand up straight. Inside the spine is the spinal cord (脊髓), which carries important information between the head and the lower part of the body. This information moves around as tiny, short bursts of electricity which travel between the brain and the other parts of the body.
The legs and feet send “sense” information to the brain, saying they’re hurt or hot. And the brain sends signals to the lower body, perhaps telling the legs to walk, dance, or sit down. Towards the bottom of the spine, nerves leave the spine. Different nerves help control different groups of muscles in the legs.
When someone’s spinal cord is hurt, this important pathway can get damaged. When that happens, a person is “paralyzed”, and he can’t move his legs. Now scientists in Lausanne, Switzerland have given three paralyzed men the ability to walk again. Each of the three men had damaged their spinal cords in motorcycle accidents and couldn’t move their legs.
To walk again, the man had operation. A special device was placed directly on the lower part of their spinal cords, below their injury. The implant (植入物) contained sixteen electrodes, which are small objects that electricity can pass through. The researchers made sure the electrodes on the implant were lined up with the nerves that control the leg muscles. To begin with, the scientists controlled the implants from a computer. Just hours after the implants were first used, all three men were taking steps, with support.
In the past, scientists have had some success with similar implants in the lower spine. But this research is different. The patients’ brains aren’t sending messages to their legs. The researchers used computers to set modes of movement—like taking a step—that would work well with each patient. The patients then used the computer to choose the pattern they wanted. That caused the implant, and the muscles to move in the chosen way. Over time, the men were able to walk entirely on their own, using a special walker with buttons to trigger each leg.
The solution isn’t perfect. It’s very expensive, it requires difficult surgery, and the patients can’t walk without the system. But the scientists are expecting that in the future, this technology will allow many paralyzed people to begin to walk again in just hours.
1. How does the spinal cord function in one’s body?| A．By sending out signals to the lower body. | B．By controlling different groups of muscles. |
| C．By providing electricity for the body. | D．Passing on information between body parts. |
| A．They receive messages from patients’ brains. |
| B．They work well by successful operations. |
| C．They are driven by computers to aid the patients to walk around. |
| D．They cause the muscles to function in a specific way. |
| A．Critical. | B．Objective. | C．Doubtful. | D．Favorable. |
| A．To compare different implants. |
| B．To show the important role of spinal cord in our bodies. |
| C．To inform us of a new invented implant. |
| D．To identify the weaknesses of former implants. |
1. What seems to be the man’s problem?
| A．He doesn’t seep well. | B．He has no more pills. | C．He can’t focus properly. |
| A．Stay home from work. | B．Have a check-up. | C．Stop feeling anxious. |
