1 . A quick increase of dopamine (多巴胺) shifts mice into a dreamy stage of sleep. In the mice’s brains, the chemical messenger triggers rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM, researchers report in the March 4 Science.
These new results are some of the first to show a trigger for the shifts. Understanding these transitions in more detail could ultimately point to ways to treat sleep disorders in people.
Certain nerve cells in the ventral tegmental area of the mouse brain can pump out dopamine, a molecule that has been linked to pleasure, movement and learning, which is then delivered dopamine to the amygdalae, two almond-shaped structures deep in the brain that are closely tied to emotions.
Using a molecular sensor that can tell exactly when and where dopamine is released, the researchers saw that dopamine levels rose in the amygdalae just before mice shifted from non-REM sleep to REM sleep.
Next, the researchers forced the mice into the REM phase by controlling those dopamine-producing nerve cells using lasers and genetic techniques. Compelled with light, the nerve cells released dopamine in the amygdalae while mice were in non-REM sleep. The mice then shifted into REM sleep sooner than they typically did, after an average of about two minutes compared with about eight minutes for mice that weren’t prompted to release dopamine. Stimulating these cells every half hour increased the mice’s total amount of REM sleep.
Additional experiments suggest that these dopamine-making nerve cells may also be involved in aspects of narcolepsy (嗜睡症). A sudden loss of muscle tone, called cataplexy, shares features with REM sleep and can accompany narcolepsy. Stimulating these dopamine-making nerve cells while mice were awake caused the mice to stop moving and fall directly into REM sleep.
The results help clarify a trigger for REM in mice; whether a similar thing happens in people isn’t known. Earlier studies have found that nerve cells in people’s amygdalae are active during REM sleep.
Many questions remain. Drugs that change dopamine levels in people don’t seem to have big effects on REM sleep and cataplexy. But these drugs affect the whole brain, and it’s possible that they are just not selective enough.
1. What can we learn from this passage?| A．People with sleep disorders could benefit from the research. |
| B．Dopamine is generated in two almond-shaped structures. |
| C．Dopamine levels rose after mice shifted to REM sleep. |
| D．An increase of dopamine can trigger REM in people. |
| A．the entire brain |
| B．REM sleep and cataplexy |
| C．drugs affecting dopamine levels |
| D．people suffering from sleep disorders |
| A．To introduce two stages of sleep of all animals. |
| B．To explain dopamine as a trigger for REM in mice. |
| C．To present a new way to cure sleep disorders in people. |
| D．To propose a pioneer research interest in brain structure. |
2 . Using needles to deliver drugs has been common for more than a century. The past hundred years have seen all manner of medical advances, from life-saving medicine and X-rays to mRNA vaccines and special cancer treatments. Yet the needle has stayed mostly unchanged. Although now available in a variety of different sizes, it remains a hollow (having a hole or empty space inside), pointy tube.
With luck, that may soon change. As Yichi Ma, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues outline in a review paper, researchers around the world are looking for ways to ease the pain when needles go into the skin. Many have been inspired by nature.
The team got their idea from mosquitoes, which manage to get their blood meals without causing great pain to people. One reason is that the insects use painkilling chemicals when they first puncture(刺穿) the skin. But there is another reason. The point of a mosquito’s saw-like proboscis(锯齿状的喙) is softer at its tip. The insect makes the skin of its target tight before biting, and shakes its proboscis as it pushes the proboscis in. All of this helps reduce the force needed to puncture the skin.
One paper, published in 2020 by a group of researchers in America and China, found that a mosquito-inspired needle required 27% less puncturing force than an ordinary one. And less force means less pain. Mosquito-inspired needles might also be useful for delicate procedures such as biopsies (the examination of tissue taken from a living body). A paper from the University of Michigan, also published in 2020, found that scientists could improve biopsies of tissue in some body organs. The lower force led to less movement of the organ itself, ensuring that the needles were guided accurately to the area that needed sampling.
For now, such devices remain limited to labs. But there is a big market for better needles. According to WHO, around 16 billion injections were given in 2018. With one person in four saying they suffer from a fear of needles, the savings on stickers and sweets for the brave souls who roll up their sleeves would be considerable.
1. What can we infer about needles from Paragraph 1?| A．Their importance has been ignored for long. |
| B．They fall behind other medical innovations. |
| C．Their size remains the same for over a century. |
| D．They had a poor source of supply for decades. |
| A．The source of scientists’ inspiration. |
| B．The chemical compounds found in mosquitoes. |
| C．The unique structure of a mosquito’s proboscis. |
| D．The harmful effects of mosquito bites on humans. |
| A．To show people’s anxiety about injections. |
| B．To highlight the limitations of current needle designs. |
| C．To draw attention to the dangers of too many injections. |
| D．To emphasize the potential demand for improved needles. |
| A．The Limitations of Current Needle Designs |
| B．The Role of Needles in Traditional Chinese Medicine |
| C．Enhancing Needle Technology: Lessons from Mosquitoes |
| D．The Impact of Needle Innovation on Medical Advancements |
3 . As soon as Boran Bumovich Hignio’s bare feet touch the sand on the beach, he spreads his arms like a helicopter and happily says, “Let’s go surfing!” The 7-year-old, wearing a black wetsuit, is followed by a dozen other kids who skip their way into the blue waves of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru’s capital, Lima.
Boran gets help with his wetsuit from Diego Villarán, who founded the local surf school. This Peruvian surf school is part of a wave of community-based projects around the world that use a perhaps surprising method to help kids: surf therapy (疗法).
The idea is not only about catching waves to make use of the proven mental health benefits of physical exercise. The wider goal is to create a space for young children to express themselves freely, to help teach them how to process their emotions and to create positive social connections.
Lima’s surf therapy project is run by Alto Peru, a local nonprofit named after the neighborhood in the south of the city where Villardn — its 41-year-old founder and all of the trainee surfers come from. Many of the children in the Alto Peru program face challenging situations. Some parents are addicted to alcohol. One of the boys has even turned up for lessons with a black eye a couple of times.
Half of all mental health disorders begin before the age of 14 and up to a fifth of teenagers globally experience mental health conditions, according to the World Mental Health Survey Initiative, which conducted face-to-face interviews in 17 countries across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.
Surf therapy, which covers projects from Sierra Leone to California and Trinidad, is seen by advocates as a convincing solution to helping address mental health issues among young people. “It has changed my life,” says Omarion Butler, 19, who began surfing with Alto Peru two years ago. “When my parents put me down in the past, it was hard for me to express my feelings. But surfing makes me more confident. It helps me to take time for myself.”
1. What do we know about Boran from the first paragraph?| A．He is good at flying a plane. | B．He feels excited to go surfing. |
| C．He is having a physical education class. | D．He enjoys the holiday with his family. |
| A．The origin of surf therapy. | B．The tips for catching waves. |
| C．The purposes of surf therapy. | D．The advice on relationships. |
| A．Add some background information. | B．Summarize the previous paragraphs. |
| C．Introduce a new topic for discussion. | D．Offer some suggestions to the readers. |
4 . When delivering medications to patients, one of the most effective methods is direct injection (注射) into the bloodstream using a needle. But this can be an uncomfortable experience, especially for kids or adults with a fear of needles. While patients do have the option to take oral pills instead, drugs containing large molecules (分子) are not absorbed effectively this way.
Now, inspired by octopus suckers (章鱼吸盘), researchers from China and Switzerland have designed a needle-free alternative: a tiny, drug-filled, cup-like patch (贴片) that sticks to the inside of the cheeks. The device is easily accessible, and it can be removed at any time and the drug gets absorbed through the lining of the inner cheek, the team reports in a paper in Science Translational Medicine.
To test the design, the team 3D printed the suckers. They loaded each with the drug and stuck them inside the cheeks of three beagles, a kind of dog which has a similar inner cheek lining to humans. For comparison, they also delivered the drug to beagles via a pill. After three hours, the team found that drug blood concentrations in dogs with the patch were more than 150 times higher than in the dogs that took a tablet. They also found patches worked effectively for drugs with large molecules.
40 healthy human volunteers self-applied water-filled patches to see how well they would stay on while talking and moving their mouths. After 30 minutes, only five of the 40 patches had fallen off, which was because of improper placement. Most volunteers said they would prefer a patch over injections for daily applications.
Still, the team only tested the patch for a short time so they would need to find out what would happen if it was used repeatedly. They’d also need to determine which drugs would work with the technology: the target is large molecules, such as those used to treat obesity or osteoporosis, but they can’t be too large to fit in the cup.
1. Why do the researchers develop the patch?| A．To help patients overcome the fear of needles. |
| B．To enable kids to swallow tablets smoothly. |
| C．To offer a better way of drug delivery. |
| D．To guarantee the efficiency of oral pills. |
| A．It is technologically possible to 3D print the patches. |
| B．The cheek lining of dogs is similar to that of humans. |
| C．Patches fall easily with their mouth movement. |
| D．Drugs are absorbed better through patches than pills. |
| A．Innovative and profitable. |
| B．Effective and user-friendly. |
| C．Affordable and accessible. |
| D．Flexible and long-lasting. |
| A．The related issues to be solved. |
| B．The risk of using patches repeatedly. |
| C．The way to identity large molecules. |
| D．The trouble of improving the technology. |
1. 中国医疗工作者的工作精神；
2. 对你的影响。
注意: 1. 词数120 左右；
2. 可适当添加情节， 以使行文连贯；
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1. 针刺疗法的历史
2. 针刺疗法的功效
3. 针刺疗法的影响
注意:
1. 词数80左右
2. 可以适当增加细节, 以使行文连贯。
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cholera used to be one of the most
Tuyouyou was chosen as a researcher of a team of scientists
I
Then, I used Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to treat a variety of health problems, including severe pains, blood pressure issues and knee
TCM methods can only relieve the pain for a short time, and sometimes they are unable to address the fundamental causes. So, I suggested that Chinese Medical Volunteers perform surgeries locally
As the head of the surgical team, I was
9 . As soon as Boran Bumovich Hignio’s bare feet touch the sand on the beach, he spreads his arms like a helicopter and happily says, “Let's go surfing!” The 7-year-old, wearing a black wetsuit, is followed by a dozen other kids who skip their way into the blue waves of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru's capital, Lima.
Boran gets help with his wetsuit from Diego Villarán, who founded the local surf school. This Peruvian surf school is part of a wave of community-based projects around the world that use a perhaps surprising method to help kids: surf therapy (疗法).
The idea is not only about catching waves to make use of the proven mental health benefits of physical exercise. The wider goal is to create a space for young children to express themselves freely, to help teach them how to process their emotions and to create positive social connections.
Lima's surf therapy project is run by Alto Peru, a local nonprofit named after the neighborhood in the south of the city where Villardn-its 41-year-old founder-and all of the trainee surfers come from. Many of the children in the Alto Peru program face challenging situations. Some parents are addicted to alcohol. One of the boys has even turned up for lessons with a black eye a couple of times.
Half of all mental health disorders begin before the age of 14 and up to a fifth of teenagers globally experience mental health conditions, according to the World Mental Health Survey Initiative, which conducted face-to-face interviews in 17 countries across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.
Surf therapy, which covers projects from Sierra Leone to California and Trinidad, is seen by advocates as a convincing solution to helping address mental health issues among young people. “It has changed my life,” says Omarion Butler, 19, who began surfing with Alto Peru two years ago. “When my parents put me down in the past, it was hard for me to express my feelings. But surfing makes me more confident. It helps me to take time for myself.”
1. What do we know about Boran from the first paragraph?| A．He is good at flying a plane. | B．He feels excited to go surfing. |
| C．He is having a physical education class. | D．He enjoys the holiday with his family. |
| A．The origin of surf therapy. | B．The tips for catching waves. |
| C．The purposes of surf therapy. | D．The advice on relationships. |
| A．Add some background information. | B．Summarize the previous paragraphs. |
| C．Introduce a new topic for discussion. | D．Offer some suggestions to the readers. |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Unclear. | C．Doubtful. | D．Favorable. |
| A．Tami. | B．Dr. Maxwell. | C．Alison Simpson. |
