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  3. Some scientists have concluded that narcolepsy, a disease which disrupts sleep patterns, arises when unknown agents in th

Some scientists have concluded that narcolepsy, a disease which disrupts sleep patterns, arises when unknown agents in th

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问题              Some scientists have concluded that narcolepsy, a disease which disrupts
       sleep patterns, arises when unknown agents in the environment spur an
       autoimmune reaction winding up damaging neurons in the brain circuits that Line
       control arousal and muscle tone. Honda found that all members of a group of
(5)     narcoleptics had one aspect of their tissue type in common, one of the human
       leukocyte antigens (HLAs). Whereas the HLA type was clearly not sufficient to
       induce narcolepsy, Honda’s finding indicated that HLA type greatly affected
       susceptibility to the disease. HLA molecules are pitchfork-shaped structures that
       cells of the body use to show pieces of the proteins they contain to the immune
(10)    system, which ordinarily attacks foreign substances and cells infected by
       viruses.
           Evidence for an autoimmune cause of narcolepsy will most likely come from
       studies of the brains of people who had the disorder. Ever since Gineau
       correctly named narcolepsy as a distinct syndrome in 1880, researchers have
(15)    examined the brains of patients in a futile search for neurological damage that
       could explain the symptoms of the disease. Mignot observed that the brains of
       narcoleptic dogs had more than the usual number of receptors for the
       neurotransmitters acetylcholine, dopamine and norepinephrine and higher levels
       of some of the neurotransmitters themselves, changes identical to those Aldrich
(20)    later noted human narcoleptic brains.
          Given that narcolepsy is not progressive but chronic—i.e. after the
       establishment of symptoms,  narcoleptics do not deteriorate or improve-
       pathologists may have been focusing their efforts on the wrong stage of the
       disease’s progression. This suggested that the damage might occur during a
(25)    short time, roughly during the period in which a patient first develops signs of
       the illness. Debris left over from degenerative processes that occurred at the
       age of 20 would be removed by the brain’s support cells long before most
       patients died, and any remaining clues would be obscured by the normal
       degeneration of aging. As a loss of neurons would be undetectable unless the
(30)    dead cells were concentrated in a particular area, as in Parkinson’s disease, or
       unless many neurons died, as in Alzheimer’s disease, I therefore examined the
       brains of narcoleptic dogs shortly after their symptoms had begun, and found
       clear evidence that neurons in certain areas of the dogs’ brains were
       degenerating between one and two months of age, just before and during the
(35)    onset of symptoms. Evidence of the degeneration largely disappeared by the
       time the dogs were six months old. At this moment, all we can give patients are
       drugs to treat narcolepsy’s symptoms, even though this research promises the
       definite potential of a cure.
Which of the following, if true, would most likely weaken the significance of Mignot and Aldrich’s research?
选项 A、The numbers of neurotransmitters and receptor levels differs widely between dog brains and human brains.
B、Alterations in neurotransmitter and receptor levels might be the result of sleep disturbances, not the cause of it.
C、A particular site in the brain’s frontal lobe is isolated where the bulk of the neurological damage occurs.
D、Too few acetylcholine, dopamine and norepinephrine neurotransmitters exist in dog brains to establish their role in narcolepsy.
E、An autoimmune dysfunction is conclusively proven to be the cause in a large but incomplete majority of narcolepsy cases.
答案B
解析
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