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進入《中英對照讀新聞》Can we be awake and asleep at the same time? 我們可以同時醒著又睡著嗎？
◎國際新聞中心
If you’ve ever mislaid your keys or glasses and blamed this on being daft or forgetful, you may be doing yourself a disservice： you may be a bit short of sleep, that’s all.
如果你曾經記不起來鑰匙或眼鏡放在哪裡，然後把這種情形歸咎於笨或是健忘，你可能只是在替自己幫倒忙：你可能只是有點缺乏睡眠，如此而已。
So suggests a study on rats, which says that if a brain is tired, parts of it can fall asleep for a fraction of a second, even though the organ is ostensibly awake at the time.
一份針對老鼠的研究是這樣說的，如果大腦累了，就會有部分區塊瞬間入睡，即使大腦表面上是清醒的。
The implications are far-reaching, especially for people doing tasks where lack of sleep could be dangerous, say its authors.
研究作者指出，這種見解意義深遠，特別是對缺乏睡眠會對工作造成危險的人而言。
"Even before you feel fatigued, there are signs in the brain that you should stop certain activities that may require alertness," said Chiara Cirelli, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "Specific groups of neurons may be falling asleep, with negative consequences on performance."
「甚至是在你覺得疲累之前，大腦就會有信號說，你應該停止特定需要警覺性的活動」，威斯康辛大學麥迪遜分校心理學教授西洛里表示。他指出，「神經元的特定區塊或許已經入睡，對表現帶來負面影響。」
Cirelli and colleagues inserted ultra-fine probes into the brains of 11 adult rats to monitor electrical activity in sub-groups of neurons in the motor cortex. The rodents were then kept up four hours beyond their usual bedtime. The monitors showed that even when the animals were to all outward appearances awake and active, neurons in these specific areas did not fire -- in other words, parts of the brain were in "local sleep" even when others were awake
西洛里與同僚將超細的探針放進11隻成鼠的大腦，來監控運動皮質區中神經次區塊的電子活動，接著再讓老鼠比原本的睡眠時間晚睡4小時。監控螢幕顯示，即使是這些老鼠外表看來都醒著而且活躍，這些特定區塊的神經元並未點燃，也就是說，大腦部分區塊處於「局部入睡」狀態，即使是當其他區塊還醒著的時候。
新聞辭典
mislay：動詞，記不起來放到哪裡。例句：Could I borrow a pen? I seem to have mislaid mine.（我可以借枝筆嗎？我的好像不知道放哪去了。）
underpin：動詞，鞏固。例句：He presented the figures to underpin his argument.（他拿出數據來加強論點。）
ostensibly：副詞，表面上地。例句：Their ostensible goal was to clean up government corruption, but their real aim was to unseat the government.（他們表面上是想清除政府貪污，但真正的目的是要推翻政府。）
