Part B

　　Directions:

　　The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent text by choosing from the list A-G to fill in each numbered box. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in Boxes. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET1. (10 points)

　　[A] Ten volunteers responded to the placebo much better than the rest. By the end of the experiment, their anxiety scores had halved, whereas the others' stayed the same. Brain scans also showed that activity in the amygdala, the brain's "fear" centre, had dropped by 3 per cent。

　　[B] He and his colleagues recruited 25 people with an exaggerated fear of public humiliation, otherwise known as social anxiety disorder. Participants had to give a speech at the start and end of an eight-week treatment - which unbeknownst to them and their doctors, was actually a placebo。

　　[C] To see if there were genetic differences between responders and non-responders, Furmark screened them for a variant of the gene for tryptophan hydroxylase-2, which makes the brain chemical, serotonin. Previous studies suggested that people with two copies of a particular "G" variant are less anxious in standard "fear" tests. Sure enough 8 of the 10 responders had two copies, while none of the non-responders did (Journal of Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2534-08.2008)。

　　[D] The gene might not play a role in our response to treatment for all conditions, and the experiment involved only a small number of people. Nonetheless, the discovery is a milestone in the quest to understand this phenomenon, which often blurs the results of clinical trials "To our knowledge, it's the first time anyone has linked a gene to the placebo effect," says Tomas Furmark of Uppsala University in Sweden。

　　[E] Furmark believes the effect of the gene may extend to other conditions where the amygdala is involved, such as phobias, pain disorders and even depression. However, he cautions that only further studies will reveal whether the gene influences the placebo effect more generally。

　　[F] Echoing Furmark's caution is Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin, Italy. "We know that there's not a single placebo effect but many." Some may work through genetics, he adds, others through the expectation of a reward。

　　[G] FOR the first time, a gene is being linked to increased susceptibility to the placebo effect, the mysterious capacity some people have to benefit from sham treatments。

　　Order:

　　G →　41.　→　42.　→　43.　→　44.　→　45.　→　F

　　参考答案

　　Part B(10 points)

　　41. D　42. B　43. A　44. C　45. E

　　全文翻译

　　G 研究人员首次将基因与更容易产生安慰剂效应联系起来。安慰剂效应是指有些人所具有的从伪治疗中获益的神奇能力。

　　D 这类基因也许并不能在治疗任何疾病时都影响到我们的反应，并且只有少数人参加了这次试验。尽管如此，今天的发现对于人们理解这种通常干扰临床试验结果的现象来说，仍然具有里程碑式的意义。瑞典乌普萨拉大学的托马斯·富尔马克说：“据我们所知，这是人类第一次将基因与安慰剂效应联系起来。”

　　B 富尔马克和同事征集了25名患者社交恐惧症的志愿者。参与者必须在为期8周的治疗开始和结束时各做一次演讲——他们自己和他们的医生都不知道这实际上是一种安慰剂疗法。

　　A 10名志愿者对这种安慰剂疗法所产生的反应比其余的人要好得多。试验结束时，他们的焦虑分值已经减半，而其他人则维持不变。大脑扫描结果显示，大脑“恐惧”中枢扁桃核的活动已减少30%。

　　C 为了查看反应者与无反映者是否存在基因差别，富尔马克为他们检查了色氨酸羟化酶2基因的一种变体，这种基因变体能生成一种大脑化学物质血清素。此前的研究表明，具有两组“G”基因变体的人在标准“恐惧”测试中焦虑程度较低。完全可以肯定的是10位反映者中8位都具有这两组变体，而无反应者中则没有一个人具有这两组变体。

　　E富尔马克认为，这类基因的作用也适用于其他与扁桃核有关的疾病，如恐惧症、疼痛障碍、忧郁症等。但他警告说，只有进一步研究之后才能发现这类基因是否在更广泛的意义上影响安慰剂效应。

　　F意大利都灵大学的法布里齐奥·贝内代蒂说：“我们知道安慰剂效应不止一种，而是很多种。”他还说，有些是通过基因起作用，其他一些则是通过奖励期待起作用。