首页
登录
职称英语
William Shakespeare described old age as "second childishness" — sans teeth,
William Shakespeare described old age as "second childishness" — sans teeth,
游客
2024-11-30
25
管理
问题
William Shakespeare described old age as "second childishness" — sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste. In the case of taste he might, musically speaking, have been even more perceptive than he realized. A paper in Neurology by Giovanni Frisoni and his colleagues at the National Centre for Research and Care of Alzheimer’s Disease in Brescia, Italy, shows that one form of senile dementia can affect musical desires in ways that suggest a regression, if not to infancy, then at least to a patient’s teens.
Frontotemporal dementia is caused, as its name suggests, by damage to the front and sides of the brain. These regions are concerned with speech, and with such "higher" functions as abstract thinking and judgment. Frontotemporal damage therefore produces different symptoms from the loss of memory associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a more familiar dementia that affects the hippocampus and amygdala in the middle of the brain. Frontotemporal dementia is also rarer than Alzheimer’s. In the past five years the centre in Brescia has treated some 1,500 Alzheimer’s patients; it has seen only 46 with frontotemporal dementia.
Two of those patients interested Dr. Frisoni. One was a 68-year-old lawyer, the other a 73-year-old housewife. Both had undamaged memories, but displayed the sorts of defect associated with frontotemporal dementia — a diagnosis that was confirmed by brain scanning.
About two years after he was first diagnosed, the lawyer, once a classical music lover who referred to pop music as "mere noise", started listening to the Italian pop band "883". As his command of language and his emotional attachments to friends and family deteriorated, he continued to listen to the band at full volume for many hours a day. The housewife had not even had the lawyer’s love of classical music, having never enjoyed music of any sort in the past. But about a year after her diagnosis she became very interested in the songs that her 11-year-old granddaughter was listening to.
This kind of change in musical taste was not seen in any of the Alzheimer’s patients, and thus appears to be specific to those with frontotemporal dementia. And other studies have remarked on how frontotemporal dementia patients sometimes gain new talents. Five sufferers who developed artistic abilities are known. And in another lapse of musical taste, one woman with the disease suddenly started composing and singing country and western songs.
Dr. Frisoni speculates that the illness is causing people to develop a new attitude towards novel experiences. Previous studies of novelty-seeking behavior suggest that it is managed by the brain’s right frontal lobe. A predominance of the right over the left frontal lobe, caused by damage to the latter, might thus lead to a quest for new experience. Alternatively, the damage may have affected some specific neural circuit that is needed to appreciate certain kinds of music. Whether that is a gain or a loss is a different matter. As Dr. Frisoni puts it in his article, De Gustibus Non Disputandum Est. Or, in plainer words, there is no accounting for taste. [br] For Shakespeare, old age is the "second childishness" for they have the same
选项
A、favorite.
B、memory.
C、experience.
D、sense.
答案
D
解析
根据题干中的Shakespeare一词,将答案定位干第一段。文章第一句“莎士比亚把老年人比作人生第二个幼年期”,紧接着的“sans teeth,sans eyes,sans taste”作补充说明。虽此不知道sans是什么意思,但可以推断老人和婴儿在牙齿、眼睛、味觉方面的共同特点就是在这些方面都不敏感(sans是法语,意思是“没有”)。而牙齿、眼睛、味觉都和感官有关,所以本题应该选[D]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3866843.html
相关试题推荐
Thehumanbodyissuitablydescribedas"ahighlycomplexselfwgenera-tor
Thehumanbodyissuitablydescribedas"ahighlycomplexselfwgenera-tor
Thehumanbodyissuitablydescribedas"ahighlycomplexselfwgenera-tor
Thehumanbodyissuitablydescribedas"ahighlycomplexselfwgenera-tor
Thehumanbodyissuitablydescribedas"ahighlycomplexselfwgenera-tor
Thehumanbodyissuitablydescribedas"ahighlycomplexselfwgenera-tor
WilliamWordsworthisanEnglishA、poet.B、novelist.C、playwright.D、critic.A考查英
CharacterAnalysisofShakespeareanPlaysI.Characteranaly
CharacterAnalysisofShakespeareanPlaysI.Characteranaly
CharacterAnalysisofShakespeareanPlaysI.Characteranaly
随机试题
中国悠久的历史、广袤的国土、与世界各国和海外文化的广泛接触,孕育了中餐的独特艺术。中国有一句古话至今还广为流传,叫作“民以食为天”。几千年的推陈出新和不
Therehavebeenchangesinwomen’s【B1】______towardssports.Thesechanges
[originaltext]M:Whatkindofaccountdoyouwanttoopen?W:Asavingsaccount
[originaltext]W:(19)Whythelongface?I’veneverseenyousodown.Ithought
在现代伦理学概念体系中,道德是()。A.一种特殊的社会现象 B.以社会习俗、
患者,女性,31岁,突然出现畏寒,高热,体温达40℃,伴下腹坠痛,排尿疼痛,尿常
A.环有缩小的趋势以阻碍原磁通量的减小 B.环有扩大的趋势以阻碍原磁通量的减小
某建筑场地地层条件为:地表以下10m内为黏性土,10m以下为深厚均质砂层。场地内
按照企业所得税法的规定,下列属于中国居民企业的有()。A.依照我国法律在我
根据《水工混凝土施工规范》SL677-2014,水利水电工程施工中,跨度≤2m的
最新回复
(
0
)