Yawns Help the Brain Keep Its Cool
“打哈欠”可以帮助大脑保持清醒
Theory has it yawning helps cool the brain-and it turns out animals with bigger brains do indeed tend to yawn longer. Christopher Intagliata reports,
理论研究表明打呵欠可以帮助大脑清醒，而且拥有更大大脑的动物打呵欠的时间会更长。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。
撰文/播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔(Christopher Intagliata)
翻译:郭鑫鹏
审校:索红日
Not many scientific studies begin like this: “Many hours of watching YouTube clips. Trying to find as many yawns as possible.” But for Andrew Gallup, an evolutionary psychologist who studies yawning at the State University of New York, it was all in a day’s work.
并不是很多科学研究都以这样的方式进行：“观看许多个小时的YouTube剪辑，然后尽可能多地去统计打呵欠的次数。”然而对于纽约州立大学专门研究“呵欠”的演化心理学家安德鲁·盖洛普来说，却是很平常的事。
Gallup says yawns have traditionally been known as a sign of sleepiness, or boredom. “But recent evidence suggests that yawning may function to promote brain cooling.” The idea being, when you breathe in deeply, the incoming air slightly cools the brain. And stretching the jaw increases blood flow to the brain too—another cooling factor. Reason we do it at night? “At night time when we’re about to go to sleep our brain and body temperatures are at their highest point throughout the day. And that’s why we see highest frequency of yawning.”
盖洛普说呵欠通常被认为是感到睡意或无聊的一种信号。“但是最近一些证据表明呵欠有促使大脑清醒的作用。”其观点是当你做深呼吸时，呼入的空气可以轻微地使大脑降温。另一方面，下颌的舒张也可以增加流入大脑的血液使其清醒。而我们晚上打呵欠的原因又是什么？“在晚上，当我们准备睡觉时大脑和身体的温度会达到一天的最高点，所以会有高频率的呵欠。”
And so Gallup and his colleagues found themselves hunting for cat videos on the internet--<
接着盖洛普和他的同事们在网上寻找喵星人视频—<猫打呵欠的声音>—以及许多其他如狗、狐狸、大象、大猩猩、刺猬、松鼠、老鼠和海象打呵欠的视频。他们计算所有这些呵欠，然后将其与每个物种平均大脑重量和大脑皮层的神经元数量作比较。
Their conclusion, published in Biology Letters, was that the length of a yawn was a remarkably good predictor of an animal’s brain weight, and cortical neuron number—regardless of the size of its skull, or jawbone. [Andrew C. Gallup et al., Yawn duration predicts brain weight and cortical] “What that really represents is that yawning likely serves this very basic, and fundamental neurophysiological function. “In other words—it helps the brain keep its cool.
他们研究结果发表在《生物学快报》上，文章指出一个呵欠的长度是一个动物大脑重量和大脑皮层神经元数量的非常好的预测指标，而与头骨和下颌骨尺寸大小无关[Andrew C. Gallup et al., Yawn duration predicts brain weight and cortical]。该结论表明打呵欠有可能与这项非常基础的神经生理功能相关，话句话说，它可以帮助大脑保持清醒。
京ICP备11000850号-1 
京公网安备11010502039775号
信息网络传播视听节目许可证0111611号
国家科技基础条件平台
© 2011- 版权所有：中国数字科技馆 未经书面许可任何人不得复制或镜像
京公网安备11010502039775号 
