#大学英语听力#
An AI can predict from people’s brainwaves whether an antidepressant is likely to help them.
人工智能可以从人们的脑电波中猜测抗郁闷剂是否或许对他们有协助。
The technique may offer a new approach to prescribing medicines for mental illnesses.
这项技能或许供给一种新的方法来处方精神疾病的药物。
Antidepressants don’t always work, and we aren’t sure why.
抗郁闷药并不总是有用的，咱们也不确定为什么。
“We have a central problem in psychiatry because we characterise diseases by their end point, such as what behaviours they cause,” says Amit Etkin at Stanford University in California.
加州斯坦福大学的Amit Etkin说：“咱们在精神病学上有一个核心问题，由于咱们经过终点来描绘疾病，例如它们导致的行为。”
“You tell me you’re depressed, and I don’t know any more than that. I don’t really know what’s going on in the brain and we prescribe medication on very little information.”
“你告诉我你很懊丧，我不知道更多。我真的不知道大脑里发生了什么，咱们只依据很少的信息开药。“
Etkin wanted to find out if a machine-learning algorithm could predict from the brain scans of people diagnosed with depression who was most likely to respond to treatment with the antidepressant sertraline.
Etkin想要找出机器学习算法是否可以从被确诊为郁闷症的人的脑部扫描中猜测谁最有或许对抗郁闷剂舍曲林的医治发生反响。
The drug is typically effective in only a third of the people who take it.
这种药物一般只对三分之一的服用者有用。
He and his team gathered electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings showing the brainwaves of 228 people aged between 18 and 65 with depression.
他和他的团队收集了脑电图(EEG)记载，显现了228名年龄在18到65岁之间的郁闷症患者的脑电波。
These individuals had previously tried antidepressants, but weren’t on such drugs at the start of the study.
这些人曾经曾尝试过抗郁闷药，但在研讨开始时没有服用此类药物。
Roughly half the participants were given sertraline, while the rest got a placebo.
大约一半的参与者服用舍曲林，而其他的服用安慰剂。
The researchers then monitored the participants’ mood over eight weeks, measuring any changes using a depression rating scale.
然后，研讨人员在八周内监测参与者的心情，运用郁闷评定量表丈量任何改变。
By comparing the EEG recordings of those who responded well to the drug with those who didn’t, the machine-learning algorithm was able to identify a specific pattern of brain activity linked with a higher likelihood of finding sertraline helpful.
经过比较那些对药物反响杰出和没有反响的人的脑电图记载，机器学习算法可以识别出与发现舍曲林有协助的或许性更高相关的大脑活动的特定形式。
The team then tested the algorithm on a different group of 279 people.
然后，该团队在另一组279人身上测试了该算法。
Although only 41 per cent of overall participants responded well to sertraline, 76 per cent of those the algorithm predicted would benefit did so.
尽管整体参与者中只要41%的人对舍曲林反响杰出，但76%的算法猜测会获益的人这样做了。