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Hello, everyone.
大家好。
It is a tremendous pleasure to be here to share with you my story.
很高兴来到这里，讲述我的故事。
You’ve all heard of brainwaves.
大家都听说过脑电波吧。
For a long time, neuroscientists didn't know what they meant.
很长一段时间，神经学家们不知道它到底是什么。
But we slowly come to understand their purpose.
但我们逐渐理解其意义。
The brain generates waves with different paces or frequencies to transmit information and thoughts by coordinating the activity of nerve cells.
脑产生不同节奏、不同频率的电波，依靠神经细胞间的合作来传递信息和思想。
These waves are a little like the effect of the orchestra conductor waving a baton to keep the musicians synchronized.
这些电波的作用就像指挥家手中的指挥棒整合一切。
I'm going to talk today about the waves that have the so-called gamma frequency.
今天我想讲述的是这些脑电波中带有“伽玛频率”的。
These gamma waves are particularly important for synchronizing brain activity to process new information from the senses and for learning and memory.
这些伽玛波对于通过感官、学习、记忆来整合脑活动并产生新信息而言十分重要。
You might be surprised to learn that when these gamma waves are weaker than they should be, this may contribute to Alzheimer's disease.
你可能会认为这不可思议，但是当这些伽玛波强度不足时可能会导致阿兹海默症。
Indeed, my laboratory and others have shown that in people with Alzheimer's and in laboratory mice that model the disease, gamma waves at the frequency of 40 hertz have reduced power and synchrony than they should be.
我的研究和其他发现目前证实在阿兹海默症人群中以及研究中实验组的小白鼠中，40赫兹频率的伽玛波其强度和一致性均遭到削弱。
So back in 2015, we got an idea.
2015年时，我突然有个想法。
What if we artificially boosted these waves?
如果我们人为地增强这些波呢？
Would that affect Alzheimer's disease?
这会不会影响阿兹海默症的表现？
We have to know the answer because we are an aging society.
我们必须尽快得到答案，因为我们社会老龄化日趋严重。
As we have made progress in treating many other health problems, we've begun living long enough to develop others.
当我们解决一个又一个的健康问题时，我们因为活得太长而出现新的问题。
In the last 20 years, the Alzheimer's Association estimates deaths from heart disease declined by about seven percent.
在过去的20年里，阿兹海默症组织预计心脏病致死会下降7%。
But the number of deaths from Alzheimer's disease increased 145 percent.
但是阿兹海默症致死率会提高145%。
One in three seniors in the US dies from Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia, they say.
三分之一的美国老年人死于阿兹海默症或者别的失智症。
And more than 11 million people provide unpaid care for their loved ones with Alzheimer's.
超过1100万人无偿给患阿兹海默症的亲友提供帮助。
So this means that probably most of us in this room have known and loved someone with Alzheimer's.
这意味着现在台下大多数人都可能认识阿兹海默症患者。
I am no exception.
我也不例外。
One day when I was four, I went out with my grandmother.
我四岁时，和我的外婆出门。
And when I looked up to her to say, "Let's go home," She said, "Home. Where is home?"
当我看着她说，“我们回家吧”，她说“家...家在哪里？”
So to see if we could treat Alzheimer's disease by changing brainwaves, we tried out different approaches.
如果我们要通过改变脑电波来治愈阿兹海默症，我们尝试过不同的几种方法。
By working with my colleagues, Emery Brown and Ed Boyden at MIT, we figured out that we could entrain or stimulate increased gamma waves by simply showing mice lights blinking at that frequency.
与麻省理工大学的同事们Emery Brown和Ed Boyden合作后，我们发现可以通过将老鼠暴露在与伽玛波同频率闪烁的光下从而刺激、增强伽马波。
This really works.
这真的有用。
