問題詳情

Questions 46-50Among scientists, there are tentative signs of a psychedelics renaissance. After decades of stigma,impressive research is showing the power of these “dubious” substances to help sufferers ofdepression and addiction, or to comfort patients with a terminal cancer diagnosis, struggling to facetheir own end. This is a territory that fascinates brain scientists in their venture into humanconsciousness as effected by the use of psychedelics, drugs that produce hallucination and apparentexpansion of consciousness.One of the most interesting early findings of recent psychedelic research is that activity in the“default mode network” (DMN) falls off sharply during the psychedelic experience. This network isa critical hub in the brain that links parts of the cerebral cortex to deeper and older structures involvedin memory and emotion. The DMN appears to be involved in a range of “metacognitive” functionssuch as a self-reflection, mental time travel, theory of mind (the ability to imagine the mental statesof other people) and the creation of the so-called “autobiographical self”—the process of weavingwhat happens to us into the narrative of who we are, thereby giving us a sense of a self that fixatesover time. (Curiously, fMRI’s of the brains of experienced meditators show a pattern of activity, orquieting of activity, very similar to that of people who have been given psilocybin, the so-called“magic mushroom.”) When the default mode network is taken captive by a psychedelic, not only dowe experience losing the sense of having a self, but myriad new connections among other brainregions and networks spring up, connections that may manifest in mental experience as hallucination(when, say, your emotion centers talk directly to your visual cortex), synesthesia (as when you cansee sound or hear flavors) or, possibly, fresh and even inspiring perspectives. Disturbing a complexsystem is a great way to force it to reveal its secrets and elicit its potentials—and psychedelics allowus to do that to normal ego-centered consciousness.
46. Which of the following is the primary purpose of this passage?
(A) To discuss the effects of psychedelics on the working of brain.
(B) To argue for further research into default mode network.
(C) To refute the disturbance of human psyche by psychedelics.
(D) To introduce new therapy for seeing and hearing disorder.
(E) To propose legalization of psychedelics for clinical research.

參考答案

答案：A
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(0),B(0),C(0),D(0),E(0)

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