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  3. Roadside bombs, childhood abuse, car accidents—they form memories that can shape(and damage)us for a lifetime. Now, a handful of

Roadside bombs, childhood abuse, car accidents—they form memories that can shape(and damage)us for a lifetime. Now, a handful of

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问题     Roadside bombs, childhood abuse, car accidents—they form memories that can shape(and damage)us for a lifetime. Now, a handful of studies have shown that we’re on the verge of erasing and even rewriting memories. The hope is that this research will lead to medical treatments for mental disease, especially for addiction and post-trauma tic stress disorder(PTSD).
    Researchers have known for decades that memories are unreliable. They’re particularly adjustable when actively recalled because at that point they’re pulled out of a stable molecular state. A study was performed at the University of Washington in which adult volunteers completed a survey about their eating and drinking habits before age 16. A week later, they were given personalized analyses of their answers that stated—falsely—that they had gotten sick from rum or vodka as a teen. One in five not only didn’t notice the lie, but also recalled false memories about it and rated that beverage as less desirable than they had before.
    Studies like these point to possible treatments for mental health problems. Both PTSD and addiction disorders hinge on memories that can trigger problematic behaviors, such as crippling fear caused by loud noises or cravings brought about by the sight of drug paraphernalia(用具).
    Several studies have found chemical compounds that can be used to subdue or even delete memories in mice(and maybe someday in people). In June, a report led by an Emory University researcher showed that SR-8993, a drug that acts on the brain’s opioid receptors, can prevent a fear memory from forming. Researchers strapped mice to a wooden board for two hours—a stressful experience that later gave them a heightened sense of fear similar to PTSD. But mice given SR-8993 before or after the stressful incident were less likely to end up this way.
    Another study identified a drug, Latrunculin A, that can erase memories days later. The researchers trained mice to consume methamphetamine(甲基苯丙胺，俗称“冰毒”)in an environment with distinctive visual, tactile, and scent cues such as black walls, gridded floors. Mice that were injected with Latrunculin A two days later didn’t seek out meth when returned to that environment, but others did.
    To make more targeted treatments, researchers will ultimately need to understand how the brain’s neurons encode each memory. Susumu Tonegawa at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported that individual memories in mice leave telltale molecular signatures in the brain’s hippocampus(海马体)region. Later, his group caused mice to falsely associate an old memory with a new context—essentially creating a false memory.
    The idea of scientists manipulating memory does, naturally, sound a bit creepy. But it also points to some possible good: treatment for millions of people tormented by real memories. And that’s something worth remembering.
Why was there wrong information in the survey reports received by those interviewed?
选项 A、Early memories were unstable and unreliable.
B、Researchers made mistakes when they sent the reports.
C、Personalized analyses are open to false information.
D、It was deliberately written into the reports to test if memories were adjustable.
答案D
解析 细节推断题。由定位段最后两句中的falsely和lie可知，受访者收到的调查结果中的错误信息是研究者故意写进报告里的。究其原因，也就是这次研究的目的，在本段前两句中已经明确指出：记忆是不可靠的，尤其当人们主动唤起某种记忆时，该记忆被迫脱离一种稳定的分子状态，从而变得更加容易调整。因此，答案为D)。A)“早期记忆不稳定、不可靠”、B)“研究者发送报告时出错”和C)“个性化分析容易出现错误信息”均与原文不符，故排除。
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