Music May Orchestrate Better Brain Connectivity in Preterm Infants
音樂可以更好地調節早產兒的大腦連接
Fifteen million babies are born prematurely every year, worldwide. In some cases, the early births can be life-threatening… or cause developmental issues."They have more attention deficit difficulties. They can have a higher risk of having autism. And in general socio-emotional regulation issues." Petra Hüppi, a pediatrician and neonatologist at the University Hospital of Geneva.Now, she and her colleagues have evidence that a simple tool could help those preterm babies' brains develop: music. But before you cue the Amadeus,
全球每年約有1500萬早產兒。在某些情況下，早產可能會危及嬰兒的生命或導致嬰兒的發育出現問題。「早產兒更有可能有注意力缺陷方面的問題；早產兒患自閉症的風險更高；並且一般的社會情緒調節能力也可能有障礙。日內瓦大學醫院的兒科醫生和新生兒學家佩特拉·胡皮表示到。但是現在，她和她的同事有證據表明，一個簡單的工具可以促進早產兒的大腦發育，這個工具就是音樂。但在你要求播放《莫扎特傳》之前，（我還有話說）：
When I thought about Mozart, I thought this is a very complex musical structure and I could hardly imagine that such an immature brain would be able to fully capture the complexity of Mozart.
「當我想到莫扎特的音樂時，我認為這是一個非常複雜的音樂結構，我無法想像如此不成熟的大腦能完全捕捉莫扎特（音樂）的複雜性。」
So instead, she recruited the harpist Andreas Vollenweider, who worked with neonatal nurses to determine which sounds would most stimulate infants' brains. He then composed a suite of three eight-minute-long tracks, which the nurses played to 20 preterm babies, using wireless headphones embedded in little baby caps. Each baby heard five tracks a week for six weeks on average.
於是她招募了豎琴師安德烈亞斯·沃倫威爾德，由他和新生兒護士合作，來確定哪種聲音最能刺激嬰兒的大腦。然後，他創作了一套由三首8分鐘長的樂章組成的組曲，用嵌在嬰兒帽子裡的無線耳機由護士播放給20名早產兒聽。在六周內，每個嬰兒平均每周聽五首曲目。
Then, Hüppi's team used MRIs to visualize activity in the babies' brains. And they found that preemies who listened to tunes had brain networks that more closely resembled those of full-term babies, compared to their counterparts who didn't get the treatment. The music listeners had greater connectivity among brain regions, such as areas involved in sensory and higher-order cognitive functions--indicating that music listening might have enduring effects on brain development.
然後，胡皮的團隊使用核磁共振成像來觀察嬰兒大腦的活動。他們發現，與沒有接受治療的早產兒相比，聽音樂的早產兒的大腦連接網絡更接近足月嬰兒的大腦連接網絡。聽音樂的早產兒大腦區域之間聯繫更強，比如涉及感官和高級認知功能的區域——這表明聽音樂可能對大腦發育有持久的影響。
The details are in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Of course, many questions still remain. 「How much should they listen to that? Was the music given in the right way? Would it be much better if it was something more lively than recorded music? Was it too simple? Could it be more complex?"But Hüppi said one thing parents can already do is sing to their children. Plus, she said, it doesn't really matter if you can carry a tune.
當然，仍然還有很多問題。比如「他們應該聽多久呢？播放音樂的方式是否正確？如果換成更生動的音樂而不是錄製的音樂效果會更好嗎？選擇的音樂是不是太簡單了？要不要選更複雜的音樂？」等等。但是胡皮表示，父母已經能做的一件事就是自己唱歌給孩子聽。另外，她補充道，走不走調並不重要。
來源：科學美國人科學60秒
翻譯：小e英語 Jewel
責任編輯：Rua