Sometimes people complain when trying to learn a new skill: "I'm not that young anymore. It's harder to learn anything new. " But adult brains may be more pliable than we thought.
Research has shown that adult brains can increase in gray matter over weeks or months. Now a study finds that it's possible to increase the brain's gray matter quite quickly-in only a matter of days.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists created an experiment that mimicked how young children learn new words. They took four similar shades of green and blue and gave them made-up names-meaningless Mandarin monosyllables like sòng. Nineteen adults learned to match those names and shades in five sessions over three days, a total of an hour and 48 minutes.
The scientists took MRI images of the subjects' brains before and after the experiment. And they found a noticeable increase in gray matter volume in the regions known to be related to color vision and perception.
The researchers contend that the adult brain is thus more changeable more quickly than anyone thought.


面对一项新技术，人们常会感叹："老了，学不动了。"但其实，成年人的大脑没我们想象得那么迟钝。


科学家已经发现成年人大脑灰质增加的周期在几周到几个月不等。新的一项研究表明，这一周期甚至可以缩短至几天。

这项成果刊登在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。

科学家们设计了一项模拟儿童学习新单词的实验，他们用单音节汉字（如song，四声）对4种相似的蓝绿色块进行命名，然后让19位成年人受试者进行匹配。受试者在三天内分五次完成了匹配任务，共耗时1小时48分钟。



科学家们经过对受试者实验前后核磁共振成像对比发现，实验后他们大脑的色觉、知觉区域内的灰质明显增加了。

科学家们因此认为实际上成人的大脑运转速度相当快。

• complain [kəm´plein] vi.抱怨，叫屈；控诉 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• academy [ə´kædəmi] n.专科学校；学会；协会 (初中英语单词)
• volume [´vɔlju:m, ´vɑljəm] n.卷；书籍；体积；容量 (初中英语单词)
• vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
• changeable [´tʃeindʒəbəl] a.易变的；可换的 (初中英语单词)
• learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
• related [ri´leitid] a.叙述的；有联系的 (高中英语单词)
• contend [kən´tend] v.竞争；斗争；争论 (高中英语单词)
• trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
• noticeable [´nəutisəbəl] a.显著的；值得注意的 (英语四级单词)