原文標(biāo)題：
Nootropics
Hard-working, but incompetent
Study drugs can make people worse at problem-solving, not better
益智藥
勤奮而無(wú)用
“學(xué)習(xí)特效藥”會(huì)使人們解決問(wèn)題的能力變得更差，而不是更好

Brains in a pill
藥片中的大腦

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FOR MORE than six months Americans have been struggling to get their hands on medications like dextroamphetamine (better known as Adderall) and methylphenidate (Ritalin).

6個(gè)多月以來(lái)，美國(guó)人一直在努力獲得右旋苯丙胺（俗稱阿得拉）和哌醋甲酯（俗稱利他林）等此類藥物。

Officially, these stimulant drugs are used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

官方地說(shuō)，這些刺激劑可用于治療注意力缺陷多動(dòng)癥（ADHD）。

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Unofficially, the drugs are also popular with devotees of “nootropics”—chemicals that supposedly boost brainpower.
非官方地說(shuō)，這些藥物受到“益智藥”信徒的追捧。據(jù)稱益智藥是增強(qiáng)腦力的化學(xué)物質(zhì)。

Students and workers in industries from tech to finance take the medications in the hope they will improve their concentration and ability to get things done.
科技、金融等行業(yè)的學(xué)生和職員服用這些藥物，希望這些藥能提高注意力和完成工作的能力。

But a new paper suggests that this may be ill-advised. The drugs seem to make people slightly worse at solving problems, not better.
但一篇新論文表明，服藥可能不明智。這些藥物似乎使人們解決問(wèn)題的能力更差，而不是更好。

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In the paper, published on June 14th in Science Advances, a group of researchers led by Peter Bossaerts, an economist at the University of Cambridge, tested how Adderall, Ritalin and another stimulant drug called modafinil (Provigil) affected 40 healthy people’s ability to perform optimisation problems.
6月14日《科學(xué)進(jìn)展》上發(fā)表了一篇論文，作者是劍橋大學(xué)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家彼得·博薩茨領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的一組研究者，他們測(cè)試了阿得拉、利他林和另一種名為莫達(dá)非尼的刺激劑對(duì)40名健康人優(yōu)化能力的影響程度。

They used the “knapsack task”, in which participants had to work out which items to put into a bag.The idea was to maximise the value of the items without exceeding the carrying weight of the sack.
他們使用了“背包任務(wù)”，在這個(gè)任務(wù)中，參與者必須弄清楚將哪些物品放入包中。要求是在不超過(guò)背包重量的情況下使物品的價(jià)值最大化。

The researchers used several trials of varying difficulty, each with different weight limits and lists of items.
研究人員進(jìn)行了多次不同難度的試驗(yàn)，每次都有不同的重量限制和物品清單。

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The participants visited the lab on four separate days. On each day they were given either a placebo pill or one of the drugs under study.
參與者在4天內(nèi)分別到訪實(shí)驗(yàn)室。每天，研究人員都會(huì)給他們服用安慰劑藥片或研究中的一種藥物。

The study was double-blind, meaning neither the participants taking the pills nor the experimenters handing them out knew which had been administered on which day.
這是雙盲研究，這意味著服用藥物的參與者和分發(fā)藥物的實(shí)驗(yàn)人員都不知道哪天服用了哪種藥物。

They found that participants achieved slightly worse end-results on the task after taking a drug.
他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，參與者服用藥物后在背包任務(wù)中取得的最終結(jié)果略差。

The drugs did not impair people’s ability to find an optimal solution.Participants managed this in around half of the trials, whether they took the drugs or the placebo pills.
這些藥物不會(huì)損害人們尋找最佳解決方案的能力。無(wú)論服用藥物還是安慰劑，參與者在一半左右的試驗(yàn)中都能找到最佳解決方案。

But they did cause a small drop in the value of participants’ knapsacks across all trials, by making the non-optimal solutions worse.
但是在全部試驗(yàn)中，藥物確實(shí)導(dǎo)致參與者背包價(jià)值小幅下降，因?yàn)樗鼈兪狗亲顑?yōu)解決方案變得更糟。

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Perhaps more striking was how drugs changed the way people attacked the task.
也許人們更關(guān)注的是，藥物如何改變?nèi)藗兺瓿杀嘲蝿?wù)的方式。

After taking Adderall or Ritalin (but not Provigil) the participants spent far longer working on their knapsacks than they did when they had taken the placebo pill.
服用阿得拉或利他林（但不是莫達(dá)非尼）后，參與者花在背包上的時(shí)間比服用安慰劑藥品參與者用時(shí)要長(zhǎng)得多。

(Participants were given four minutes to complete each trial but could submit an answer earlier if they thought they had found a good solution).
（參與者有4分鐘的時(shí)間來(lái)完成每次試驗(yàn)，但如果他們認(rèn)為自己找到了一個(gè)好的解決方案，可以提前提交答案）。

When given Ritalin in particular, subjects were around 50% slower at completing trials.
特別是當(dāng)服用利他林時(shí)，參與者完成試驗(yàn)的速度要慢 50% 左右。

That was roughly equivalent to the delay expected from going from the easiest to the most difficult trial in the placebo session.

這略等同于安慰劑組中從最簡(jiǎn)單的試驗(yàn)到最困難的試驗(yàn)所預(yù)期的延遲時(shí)間。

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This extra time was spent moving items in and out of the knapsack, somewhat erratically.
這些額外的時(shí)間用于將物品移進(jìn)移出背包，時(shí)間不穩(wěn)定。

The authors assessed the productivity of each move by measuring how much it increased the value of a sack, and found that participants were about 9% less productive when they had taken one of the study drugs compared with a placebo pill.
研究者通過(guò)衡量每次動(dòng)作為背包增加價(jià)值的程度來(lái)評(píng)估每次動(dòng)作的生產(chǎn)率，結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)，與服用安慰劑藥片組相比，服用其中一種藥物的參與者的生產(chǎn)率降低了約 9%。

“It was like they were trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle by randomly throwing pieces in the air,” says Dr Bossaerts.
“這就像他們?cè)噲D通過(guò)隨機(jī)地將碎片扔到空中來(lái)解決拼圖游戲一樣，”博薩茨博士說(shuō)。

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The authors argue that although the drugs made people more motivated and helped them put more effort into the task, this was more than cancelled out by the fact that the drugs decreased the quality of all that effort.
研究者認(rèn)為，盡管藥物使人們更有動(dòng)力更有精力來(lái)完成任務(wù)，但藥物使質(zhì)量下降的壞處抵消了這些好處。

In other words, although people tried harder, they became far less competent.
換句話說(shuō)，盡管人們更加努力，但他們的能力卻大大下降。

Just how much the drugs hindered performance seemed to depend on how good a participant was without them.
藥物對(duì)結(jié)果的干擾程度似乎取決于參與者在沒(méi)有藥物情況下的能力水平。（正常狀態(tài)下能力越強(qiáng)，服藥后干擾程度越大）

Star performers during the placebo session fell to the bottom of the pack when they had taken the drugs.
在服用安慰劑期間結(jié)果出色的人，在服用藥物后結(jié)果卻墊底了。
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Popping stimulants is commonplace in industries like software and finance.
軟件和金融等從業(yè)者服用刺激劑已司空見(jiàn)慣。

One survey of 6,500 American college students reported that 14% had used the drugs for non-medical reasons.
一項(xiàng)針對(duì) 6,500 名美國(guó)大學(xué)生的調(diào)查顯示，有14% 的人出于非醫(yī)療目的使用過(guò)這些藥物。

This latest study adds to a growing pile of evidence suggesting that such drugs do little to improve cognitive performance in people who do not need them.

這項(xiàng)最新研究為不斷增長(zhǎng)的證據(jù)添磚加瓦，證據(jù)表明對(duì)非必需的人來(lái)說(shuō)，這些藥物對(duì)認(rèn)知能力的提升幾乎無(wú)效。

For tech bosses looking for efficient employees, and workers hoping to clock off at a reasonable hour, the stimulant shortage may be a good thing.
對(duì)于渴望找到高效員工的科技公司老板和渴望按時(shí)下班的的員工來(lái)說(shuō)，刺激劑短缺可能是一件好事。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語(yǔ)詞匯量708左右）
原文出自：2023年6月24日《The Economist》Science & technology版塊

精讀筆記來(lái)源于：自由英語(yǔ)之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene

本文編輯校對(duì): Irene
僅供個(gè)人英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補(bǔ)充資料】（來(lái)自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
Study drugs學(xué)習(xí)藥物這個(gè)術(shù)語(yǔ)通常指的是非處方藥或處方藥，被學(xué)生非法使用或?yàn)E用以增加注意力、提高學(xué)習(xí)能力和記憶力。盡管這些藥物可能在短期內(nèi)提供一些認(rèn)知增強(qiáng)效果，但它們并不是真正的"特效藥"，因?yàn)樗鼈儾](méi)有被專門設(shè)計(jì)為提高學(xué)習(xí)和記憶能力。使用可能會(huì)有嚴(yán)重的副作用，包括心率加快、血壓升高、焦慮、失眠、依賴和濫用等。

Adderall阿得拉是一種包含兩種藥物的處方藥，其中包括左旋甲基苯丙胺（L-安非他命）和右旋甲基苯丙胺（D-安非他命）。它是一種中樞神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)興奮劑，常用于治療注意力缺陷多動(dòng)障礙（ADHD）和嗜睡癥。通過(guò)增加大腦中的多巴胺和去甲腎上腺素的釋放來(lái)提高警覺(jué)性和注意力。這使得人們能夠集中注意力、減少?zèng)_動(dòng)行為并改善行為控制。因此，它被廣泛用于幫助控制ADHD癥狀，包括注意力不集中、多動(dòng)和沖動(dòng)行為。同時(shí)也具有一定的副作用和風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，如睡眠問(wèn)題、食欲減退、心臟問(wèn)題等，因此必須在醫(yī)生的指導(dǎo)下使用，并定期進(jìn)行監(jiān)測(cè)和評(píng)估。

Ritalin利他林是一種常用的處方藥，也稱為哌酮定。它是一種中樞神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)刺激劑，常用于治療注意力缺陷多動(dòng)障礙（ADHD）。作用于大腦中的多巴胺和去甲腎上腺素神經(jīng)遞質(zhì)系統(tǒng)，從而改變神經(jīng)傳遞的方式。常見(jiàn)副作用包括失眠、食欲減退、焦慮、頭痛和肚子痛等。

注意力缺陷多動(dòng)障礙（ADHD）是一種常見(jiàn)的神經(jīng)發(fā)育性疾病。它通常在兒童時(shí)期開(kāi)始，并可能持續(xù)到成年。病因尚不清楚，但研究表明遺傳、環(huán)境和神經(jīng)化學(xué)因素都可能與其發(fā)生有關(guān)。ADHD與神經(jīng)遞質(zhì)多巴胺的不平衡有關(guān)，這導(dǎo)致大腦中的信息處理和調(diào)節(jié)困難。癥狀包括注意力不集中、易分散、記憶問(wèn)題、組織困難、忘記性強(qiáng)、常常受干擾和沖動(dòng)行為等。這些癥狀可能對(duì)學(xué)業(yè)、社交和家庭生活產(chǎn)生負(fù)面影響。

【重點(diǎn)句子】（3個(gè)）
Students and workers in industries from tech to finance take the medications in the hope they will improve their concentration and ability to get things done.
科技、金融等行業(yè)的學(xué)生和職員服用這些藥物，希望這些藥能提高注意力和完成工作的能力。

They used the “knapsack task”, in which participants had to work out which items to put into a bag.The idea was to maximise the value of the items without exceeding the carrying weight of the sack.
他們使用了“背包任務(wù)”，在這個(gè)任務(wù)中，參與者必須弄清楚將哪些物品放入包中。要求是在不超過(guò)背包重量的情況下使物品的價(jià)值最大化。

In other words, although people tried harder, they became far less competent.
換句話說(shuō)，盡管人們更加努力，但他們的能力卻大大下降。