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If you start reading pop-psychology listicles, you might come across this statement:
如果你开始阅读流行心理学书籍，你可能会遇到这种说法：
Supposedly, no one who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
据推测，生来失明的人从未被诊断患有精神分裂症。
We saw this so-called “fact,” too, and it seemed so bizarre that we almost immediately dismissed it.
我们也看到了这个所谓的“事实”，它显得很怪异，我们几乎立刻就否定了它。
After all, schizophrenia is a mental illness with symptoms including delusions, disordered thinking, and hallucinations.
毕竟，精神分裂症是一种精神疾病，症状包括妄想、思维紊乱和幻觉。
How is that closely related to being blind?
这与失明有什么密切关系？
Well, surprisingly, there is some truth behind this idea.
令人惊讶的是，这个想法背后是有些道理的。
In the nearly 70 years they’ve been looking — and despite the fact that it should happen statistically
在近70年里，人们一直在寻找，尽管在统计上应该出现，
— researchers have found no known cases of someone with a certain kind of blindness also being diagnosed with schizophrenia.
但研究人员还未发现有某种失明的人也被诊断为精神分裂症的已知病例。
It sounds unlikely, but some evidence suggests these conditions are more closely related than you might think.
这听起来不太可能，但一些证据表明，这些情况的关系比你想象的更密切。
In fact, some scientists think this kind of blindness may even prevent people from developing schizophrenia in the first place.
事实上，一些科学家认为这种失明甚至可以防止人们患上精神分裂症。
First, it’s worth noting that this research has only looked at small, limited sample sizes and is only based on correlations.
首先，值得注意的是，这项研究只着眼于小规模、有限的样本量，而且只基于相关性。
That doesn’t mean these studies aren’t useful, but it does mean it’s too early to say anything for sure
这并不意味着这些研究一无是处，但它确实意味着现在断言一切还为时过早。
— especially since we still don’t know what causes schizophrenia.
特别是因为我们仍然不知道导致精神分裂症的原因。
That being said, some researchers have made pretty interesting observations here.
一些研究人员在这方面进行了非常有趣的观察。
Their work is specifically focused on congenital or early cortical blindness, which we’ll call CCB for short.
他们的工作特别关注先天性或早期皮质盲，简称为CCB。
This is a condition someone has at birth or develops in infancy, and it’s blindness caused by a dysfunction in the brain’s occipital visual cortex.
这是一种在出生或婴儿期出现的疾病，是由大脑枕部视觉皮层功能紊乱导致的失明。
So if someone became blind as an adult or was born blind because of something about their eyes, these studies don’t apply.
因此，如果一个人在成年后失明，或者因为眼睛的某些原因而天生失明，这些研究就不适用。
At first glance, it might not seem like this condition has anything to do with schizophrenia.
乍一看，这种病症似乎与精神分裂症无关。
But once you look at how the brain might cause schizophrenia’s symptoms, the possible connection becomes a lot more clear.
但一旦你看到大脑是如何引起精神分裂症症状的，可能的联系就变得更加清晰了。
Take visual hallucinations, for example.
以幻视为例。
They’re relatively common in people with schizophrenia, and some evidence suggests
它们在精神分裂症患者中比较常见，一些证据表明，
they could happen when someone has trouble integrating information from their senses - especially their sense of sight.
当某人无法整合来自其感官的信息，尤其是视觉信息时，就可能发生这种情况。
The idea is that the brain would have trouble getting the visual information it receives to line up with what it’s getting from the other senses.
这种观点认为，大脑很难让它所接收到的视觉信息与从其他感官获得的信息保持一致。
And because of that - or in an effort to compensate - it could end up producing hallucinations.
正因为如此，或是为了补偿，大脑最终会产生幻觉。
Of course, if someone had never gotten any visual input - like, say, if they had CCB - this couldn’t happen.
当然，如果有人从未得到过任何视觉输入，比如说，如果他们患有天性或早期皮质盲，这种情况就不可能发生。
There would be nothing to overwhelm the brain, so this process couldn’t be triggered.
不会有什么东西冲击大脑，所以不会触发该过程。
This isn’t the only connection scientists have noticed, though: They’ve also seen a similar relationship with auditory symptoms.
不过，这并非科学家们注意到的唯一联系：他们还发现了与听觉症状的类似关系。
People with schizophrenia tend to score lower on measures of auditory processing, and they frequently report having auditory hallucinations
精神分裂症患者在听觉处理方面得分较低，他们经常报告有幻听。
— two things that are likely related to the brain’s auditory cortex.
这两件事可能与大脑的听觉皮层有关。
It’s too early to say that these cortex conditions cause those symptoms, but some experiments have found a correlation between the two.
现在说这些皮层状况导致这些症状还为时过早，但一些实验已经发现两者之间存在相关性。
In one published in 2017, for example, participants with schizophrenia who had experienced auditory hallucinations
例如，2017年发表的一篇文章中提到，有过幻听经历的精神分裂症患者的听觉皮质
tended to have thinner auditory cortexes than those who hadn't.
往往比没有幻听经历的人更薄。
But where does CCB come in?
但先天性或早期皮质盲是怎么介入的呢？
Well, many folks with this kind of blindness have spent their lives relying more on their sense of hearing,
很多患有该失明症的人一生更多地依赖听觉，
so they tend to have greater auditory perception than average.
所以他们的听觉感知能力往往比一般人强。
And brain scans have revealed structural changes that reflect that.
大脑扫描显示了反映这一点的结构变化。
Most notably, their auditory cortexes have likely expanded.
最值得注意的是，他们的听觉皮层可能已经扩张。
So even if someone with CCB was born with a thinner auditory cortex or was at risk of developing one,
因此，即使先天性或早期皮质盲人生来就具有较薄的听觉皮层，或者存在出现这种情况的风险，
having to rely on their hearing could have strengthened that brain region.
但不得不依赖听觉可能会加强该大脑区域。
And that could lower their risk for developing auditory hallucinations.
这可以降低他们产生幻听的风险。
Relationships like this one have even been observed on a larger, more brain-wide scale - although the consequences there are still a bit fuzzy.
像这样的关系甚至在更大的范围内、更广泛的大脑范围内被观察到，尽管结果仍不太明确。
In any case, though, this research is all based on correlation, which means we can't conclusively say CCB prevents schizophrenia.
不过，这项研究建立在相关性基础上，这意味着我们不能肯定地说，先天性或早期皮质盲能预防精神分裂症。
But one thing we can say is that these studies are still significant.
但有一点我们可以确定，这些研究仍然意义重大。
They're super interesting on their own, and on a larger scale,
它们本身就非常有趣，在更大的范围内，
they can teach us more about how conditions like schizophrenia affect the brain - and how we could treat them.
它们可以教给我们更多关于精神分裂症等疾病影响大脑的知识，以及我们如何治疗它们。
Based on this kind of research, scientists have suggested that people at high risk for schizophrenia might benefit from some kind of cognitive training at a young age
基于这类研究，科学家们提出，精神分裂症高危人群在年轻时可能会从某种认知训练中受益，
- training that works on things like sensory or perceptual skills.
这种训练对感觉或知觉技能等方面起作用。
We don't know if that would be able to prevent the condition from happening, but it would hopefully improve someone’s quality of life.
我们不知道这是否能防止人们患上精神分裂症，但它有望改善某些人的生活质量。
Ultimately, this is another example of how our brains are full of surprises, and how seemingly-unrelated systems are connected.
归根结底，这是说明我们的大脑充满惊喜，以及看似无关的系统相互连接的又一个例子。
And by studying relationships like this, there's a lot we can learn.
通过研究这种关系，我们可以学到很多东西。
If you want to learn more about schizophrenia and how it might be different than what you've heard, you can watch our episode about it after this.
如果你想了解更多关于精神分裂症的知识，以及它与你所说的有什么不同，你可以随后观看有关精神分裂症的那集节目。
And as always, thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
像往常一样，还是要谢谢你收看本期《心理科学秀》！
