雅思阅读 189: Music as a Lifeline for the Demented Mind（音乐：痴呆心灵的生命线）

改编由 Healthcare / PMC systematic reviews。雅思阅读 Section 3 难度，约 1050 词。 素材来源：https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10671073/

Reading Passage

A. Alzheimer's disease and related dementias affect more than 55 million people worldwide, a figure projected to double by 2030 and triple by 2050 as populations age. The disease slowly dismantles the brain's capacity to form new memories, recognise familiar faces and navigate familiar streets. For most of that decline, medicine has had little to offer beyond symptomatic treatment. Into that gap has stepped an unlikely intervention: music. Caregivers have long observed that patients who no longer remember their own children can, when a familiar song plays, sing along word for word. The phenomenon is so striking that it has featured in popular documentaries and in nursing-home videos shared millions of times online. Clinicians who work with advanced dementia have learned to keep a playlist ready, because it often does what medication cannot. Clinicians and neuroscientists have begun to ask why, and whether the phenomenon can be turned into a therapy rather than a curiosity. The answers have implications for tens of millions of families.

B. The first clue is anatomical. Alzheimer's disease attacks the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe, structures essential for laying down new conscious memories. But the brain's musical memory network — which spans the auditory cortex, the cerebellum and connections to the medial prefrontal cortex — is largely spared in early and moderate stages of the disease. A systematic review of randomised controlled trials concluded that musical memory regions are "largely spared and well-preserved" in Alzheimer's, which explains why a song from adolescence or early adulthood can unlock a response when spoken language has already faded. Music does not bypass the disease; it reaches brain structures that the disease has not yet destroyed. This is why the songs that work best are almost always those from a patient's teenage and young-adult years, when the musical memory was first laid down. A patient who cannot recognise their daughter's face may still conduct the orchestra with their hands when a waltz from 1958 begins.

C. Recent trials have tested whether deliberately exploiting that spared network can improve cognition. A double-blind randomised controlled trial compared structured music therapy against a control activity in older adults with Alzheimer's and mixed dementia. The music-therapy group, which listened to and engaged with personally meaningful music over several weeks, improved on delayed-recall tests — the ability to hold information in mind and retrieve it later — while the control group did not. A six-month singing programme studied in Japan produced a faster completion time on a standard reasoning test, and functional MRI showed increased neural activity in the right angular gyrus and left lingual gyrus, regions associated with cognitive control. An international systematic review of eleven studies concluded that music therapy most consistently improved memory, language and orientation. The effect on agitated behaviour was often more dramatic than the effect on formal cognitive tests: patients who had been refusing care would agree to eat or dress when familiar music played. Care homes have begun to install personal playlist systems precisely because this behavioural effect is so consistent. The music need not be "classical" or "therapeutic"; it is the patient's own history that matters most.

D. The mechanism appears to involve neuroplasticity. Music — particularly music that is personally meaningful — engages the auditory system while simultaneously activating memory and reward circuits. A study in healthy older adults found that a year of musical training strengthened functional connectivity between the auditory cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex, a connection that normally weakens with age. The medial prefrontal cortex is one of the last regions to atrophy in Alzheimer's, and it is involved in self-referential memory — the kind that makes a song feel like "yours." By driving activity through the auditory system into this relatively preserved prefrontal region, music may be exercising a pathway that the disease leaves intact, effectively routing around the damaged hippocampus. It is as though the main road has collapsed, but a side road still leads to the destination. Music provides that side road, driving activity through intact circuits into a region of the brain that the disease has not yet reached.

E. The limitations are as important as the promises. Music therapy does not cure dementia, and the cognitive gains are modest and tend to fade when the intervention stops. Some of the strongest effects are on mood and agitation rather than on memory itself: agitated patients quieten, and families report that the person they knew briefly returns. Not every trial has been positive, and study quality varies widely. Still, the approach has one overwhelming advantage over pharmaceutical alternatives: it is cheap, it has no side effects, and it can be delivered by caregivers, not specialists. The next generation of trials — including an international project called Memory for Music, which tests whether patients with Alzheimer's can learn entirely new songs — aims to determine whether the intervention can do more than retrieve old memories and help lay down new ones. If it can, music may become not a comfort but a genuine form of brain rehabilitation. Even if it cannot, it has already proved that parts of the mind long assumed lost can still respond, quietly and predictably, to a tune. The patients who recognise the melody are not, in that moment, just a disease; they are themselves, briefly restored. For their families, that brief restoration is worth more than any cognitive score on a clipboard. It is the difference between caring for a stranger and caring for a parent. That distinction is what drives families to keep the music playing, even on the hardest days. It is also why researchers are increasingly optimistic that music can do more than comfort. It may, in the end, be a genuine therapy.

Questions 1-4

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B, C, D and E from the list of headings below.

List of Headings i. Why music survives where words fail ii. The global economic cost of Alzheimer's disease iii. What randomised trials have shown iv. The proposed mechanism: neuroplasticity and spared brain circuits v. Limits, advantages and the next generation of research vi. How to train as a music therapist vii. Why pharmaceutical drugs are always better

1. Paragraph B: ____
2. Paragraph C: ____
3. Paragraph D: ____
4. Paragraph E: ____

Questions 5-8

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

5. Why does music reach Alzheimer's patients when spoken language often does not? A. Music uses brain structures largely spared by the disease. B. Music is louder than speech. C. Alzheimer's patients cannot hear speech at all. D. Music bypasses the ears entirely.

6. What did the double-blind RCT of structured music therapy find? A. The control group improved more than the therapy group. B. The therapy group improved on delayed-recall tests. C. Music therapy had no effect on any measure. D. Only the healthy participants improved.

7. What brain change did the Japanese six-month singing programme produce? A. Atrophy of the hippocampus reversed completely. B. Increased neural activity in the right angular and left lingual gyri. C. The patients learned to play the piano. D. No changes were seen on MRI.

8. What is one practical advantage of music therapy over drugs? A. It is more expensive but more effective. B. It is cheap, has no side effects and can be delivered by caregivers. C. It requires no training whatsoever. D. It cures the disease permanently.

Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?

Write:

• TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
• FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
• NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9. Dementia cases worldwide are projected to triple by 2050.
10. The hippocampus is one of the brain regions spared by Alzheimer's disease.
11. The six-month singing programme in Japan used functional MRI.
12. Music therapy has been shown to cure Alzheimer's disease in some patients.
13. Music therapy is more expensive than pharmaceutical treatment per patient.

Questions 14-15

Complete the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.

Music drives activity through the auditory system into the relatively preserved (14) __________ cortex, effectively routing around the damaged (15) __________.

答案与解析

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