Question

    Loneliness hurts. It is psychologically distressing and so physically unhealthy that being lonely increases the likelihood of an earlier death by 26 percent. But psychologists think it hurts so much because, like hunger and thirst, loneliness acts as a biological alarm bell.

On March 26, just as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted a report on bioRxiv. It is the first study in humans to show that both loneliness and hunger share signals deep in a part of the brain that governs very basic impulses for reward and motivation. So, our need to connect is apparently as fundamental as our need to eat.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare brain responses to loneliness and hunger. 40 adult participants underwent a 10-hour session depriving (剥夺) them of food and another 10-hour session denying them social contact. Both sessions served as a control (对照) condition for each other.

The social-isolation condition was challenging to arrange. Some people are lonely in a crowd, while others enjoy solitude To induce(l t)not just objective isolation but subjective feelings of loneliness, the researchers had the participants spend their time from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. in a room at the laboratory without phones, laptops or even novels in case fictional characters provided some social support. Puzzles were allowed, as was preapproved nonfiction reading or writing.

Researchers then focused on a midbrain region called “the substantia nigra”, a center of dopamine (多巴胺) release involved with motivation and desire. The dopaminergic response shows a strong wanting. In the scanner, participants saw images of their preferred forms of social interaction and of their favorite foods, as well as a control image of flowers. It was then found that the substantia nigra responded only to cues of what they had been deprived of. The magnitude of the response correlated with the subjects’ self-reports of how hungry or lonely they were, though the feelings of hunger were consistently stronger.

Finally, the researchers used machine learning to confirm their findings. A software classifier trained to recognize neural patterns during fasting (斋戒) proved able to recognize similar neural patterns from the social-isolation condition even though it had never “seen” them. So there seems to be an underlying shared neural signature between the two states.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, an obvious next question for the work was whether different forms of social media could satisfy the need for social connection. Those researchers were never able to get funding for such a study. But now it seems they will.

1.The report posted on March 26 ________.

A.is based on the social-isolation condition during the pandemic

B.is the first study on the effect of loneliness on human beings

C.reflects the similarity between loneliness and hunger

D.shows human need for reward and motivation

2.What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A.Why inducing feelings of loneliness was challenging

B.How loneliness was created among participants

C.Why participants were denied access to phones

D.How researchers compared brain responses

3.We can infer that participants’ substantia nigra showed ________ response(s) to the image of flowers.

A.little B.various

C.strong D.consistent

4.What does the underlined “it” in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A.The neural signature. B.Fasting.

C.Machine learning. D.The classifier.

Answer

1.C

2.B

3.A

4.D

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。一项研究，表明孤独和饥饿都在大脑深处的一个部分共享信号，而这个部分的大脑支配着非常基本的奖励和动机冲动。所以，我们对连接的需求显然和我们对吃饭的需求一样基本。文章就这项研究是如何开展的进行了说明，以及这项发现的意义。

1.细节理解题。根据第一段中But psychologists think it hurts so much because, like hunger and thirst, loneliness acts as a biological alarm bell.可知但心理学家认为它之所以如此痛苦，是因为像饥饿和口渴一样，孤独就像一个生理上的警钟一样，给人敲响了生理上的警钟。由此可知，这份发表于3月26日的报告反映了孤独和饥饿之间的相似性。故选C。

2.主旨大意题。根据第四段中Some people are lonely in a crowd, while others enjoy solitude To induce not just objective isolation but subjective feelings of loneliness, the researchers had the participants spend their time from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. in a room at the laboratory without phones, laptops or even novels in case fictional characters provided some social support. Puzzles were allowed, as was preapproved nonfiction reading or writing.可知有些人在人群中是孤独的，而另一些人则喜欢孤独，为了诱发不只是客观上的孤独感，而是主观上的孤独感，研究人员让参与者在实验室的一个房间里度过他们的时间，从早上9点到晚上7点，没有电话、笔记本电脑甚至小说，以备虚构人物提供一些社会支持。拼图是允许的，因为是预先批准的非小说阅读或写作。由此可知，第四段主旨大意是参与者之间如何产生孤独感。故选B。

3.推理判断题。根据第五段中In the scanner, participants saw images of their preferred forms of social interaction and of their favorite foods, as well as a control image of flowers. It was then found that the substantia nigra responded only to cues of what they had been deprived of. The magnitude of the response correlated with the subjects’ self-reports of how hungry or lonely they were, though the feelings of hunger were consistently stronger.可知在扫描仪中，参与者看到的是他们喜欢的社交形式和他们最喜欢的食物的图像，以及鲜花的控制图像。然后发现，黑质体只对被剥夺的东西的线索作出反应。该反应的大小与受试者的自我报告的饥饿或孤独程度相关，尽管饥饿感持续较强。结合上文可知参与者是没有花的，由此可推知，参与者的黑质体对花的形象几乎没有反应。故选A。

4.词义猜测题。根据上文A software classifier trained to recognize neural patterns during fasting proved able to recognize similar neural patterns from the social-isolation condition可知事实证明，经过训练的软件分类器能够识别禁食期间的神经模式，尽管它（软件分类器）从未“看到”过类似的神经模式，但它还是能够识别出社会隔离状态下的类似神经模式。由此可知，it指代是上文中的“软件分类器”，故选D。