英語(yǔ)聽力頻道為大家整理的普特英語(yǔ)聽力網(wǎng)：迷幻藥之考驗(yàn)，供大家參考:)
Science and Technology LSD Acid tests
Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo
THE psychedelic era of the 1960s is remembered for its music, its art and, of course, its drugs.
Its science is somewhat further down the list.
But before the rise of the counterculture, researchers had been studying LSD as a treatment for everything from alcoholism to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), with promising results.
Timothy Leary, a psychologist at Harvard University, was one of the best-known workers in the field, but it was also he who was widely blamed for discrediting it, by his unconventional research methods and his lax handling of drugs.
Now, the details of Leary's research will be made public, with the recent purchase of his papers by the New York Public Library.
These papers will be interesting not only culturally, but also scientifically, as they reflect what happened between the early medical promise of hallucinogens and their subsequent blacklisting by authorities around the world.
American researchers began experimenting with LSD in 1949, at first using it to simulate mental illness.
Once its psychedelic effects were realised, they then tried it in psychotherapy and as a treatment for alcoholism, for which it became known at the time as a miracle cure.
By 1965 over 1,000 papers had been published describing positive results for LSD therapy. It, and its close chemical relative psilocybin, isolated from hallucinogenic mushrooms, were reported as having potential for treating anxiety disorders, OCD, depression, bereavement and even sexual dysfunction.
Unfortunately, most of the studies that came to these conclusions were flawed: many results were anecdotal, and control groups were not established to take account of the placebo effect.
Still, the field was ripe for further study.
But alongside growing public fear of LSD, Leary's leadership had become a liability.
He was seen less and less as a disinterested researcher, and more and more as a propagandist.
In 1962, amid wide publicity, the Harvard Psilocybin Project was shut down.
Leary took his research to an estate in upstate New York, where he also hosted a stream of drug parties.
Eventually both LSD and psilocybin were proscribed.
Which was a pity because, like many other drugs the authorities have taken against as a result of their recreational uses, hallucinogens have medical applications as well.
But time heals all wounds and now, cautiously, study of the medical use of hallucinogens is returning.
Psilocybin has shown promise in treating forms of OCD that are resistant to other therapies, in relieving cluster headaches (a common form of chronic headache) and in alleviating the anxiety experienced by terminally ill cancer patients.
The first clinical study of LSD in over 35 years, also on terminally ill patients, is expected to finish this summer.
Peter Gasser, the Swiss doctor leading the experiment, says that a combination of LSD and psychotherapy reduced anxiety levels of all 12 participants in the study, though the statistical significance of the data has yet to be analysed.
Research into LSD is not confined to medicine.
Franz Vollenweider, of the Heffter Research Institute in Zurich, for example, is scanning people's brains to try to understand how hallucinogenic drugs cause changes in consciousness.
And biotechnology may lead to a new generation of hallucinogenic drugs.
Edwin Wintermute and his colleagues at Harvard have engineered yeast cells to carry out two of six steps in the pathway needed to make lysergic acid, the precursor of LSD.
They hope to add the other four shortly.
Once the pathway has been created, it can be tweaked.
That might result in LSD-like drugs that are better than the original.
Even if that does not happen, making lysergic acid in yeast is still a good idea.
The chemical is used as the starting point for other drugs, including nicergoline, a treatment for senile dementia.
The current process for manufacturing it is a rather messy one involving ergot, a parasite of rye.
It may, of course, be that LSD has no clinical uses.
Even when no stigma attaches to the drugs involved, most clinical trials end in failure.
But it is worth seeing whether LSD might fulfil its early promise.
And if the publication of Leary's archive speeds that process up by exorcising a ghost that still haunts LSD research, then the New York Public Library will have done the world a service.
科技 麥角酸二乙基酰胺 迷幻藥之考驗(yàn)
迷幻藥物的研究開始擺脫幾十年來(lái)的禁忌
20世紀(jì)60年代是一個(gè)讓人產(chǎn)生迷幻的年代，這個(gè)時(shí)代因它的音樂，它的藝術(shù)，當(dāng)然還有它的毒品而被人記得。
而那個(gè)時(shí)候的科學(xué)在某種程度上則不太被人們熟知。
不過(guò)在反傳統(tǒng)文化興趣之前，隨著有價(jià)值的研究成果的出現(xiàn)，研究者們則正在研究LSD作為一種治療從酗酒到強(qiáng)迫癥（OCD）的方法。
哈佛大學(xué)的心理學(xué)家蒂莫西?利瑞（Timothy Leary）就是該領(lǐng)域最為知名的人士之一，不過(guò)他也因?yàn)槠浞莻鹘y(tǒng)的研究方法和他對(duì)對(duì)藥物不嚴(yán)格的處理而讓這個(gè)藥物聲名狼藉，進(jìn)而廣受詬病。
現(xiàn)在，隨著紐約公共圖書館購(gòu)買他的論文，利瑞研究的細(xì)節(jié)部分將公之于眾。
這些論文不僅在文化方面將會(huì)很有引人注意，在科學(xué)上也同樣如此，它們反應(yīng)了從早期迷幻劑的醫(yī)療承諾到它們隨后進(jìn)入全球各地政府黑名單的之間的所發(fā)生的事情。
美國(guó)的研究人員研究LSD始于1949年，那時(shí)他們第一次用這個(gè)化合物來(lái)模擬精神病。
迷幻效果一被發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們接著就在心理治療方面嘗試用它，它也同樣作為一個(gè)酗酒的治療方法，因?yàn)樵诋?dāng)時(shí)這個(gè)化合物以作為一個(gè)奇跡的治愈而得名。
到1965年時(shí)，已經(jīng)有一千多篇關(guān)于LSD治療的積極結(jié)果的論文發(fā)表。LSD以及與它相關(guān)的化合物*蓋菇素，后者是從迷幻蘑菇中分離出來(lái)的一種物質(zhì)，這二者都被報(bào)道有治療焦慮癥，強(qiáng)迫癥，抑郁癥，喪親之痛甚至是性功能障礙的潛質(zhì)。
不幸的是，這些結(jié)論大多數(shù)都是有缺陷的：許多的結(jié)果都是道聽途說(shuō)的，并沒有設(shè)立相應(yīng)的對(duì)照組以用來(lái)考慮安慰劑的影響。
盡管如此，但這個(gè)領(lǐng)域進(jìn)一步研究的時(shí)機(jī)已經(jīng)成熟了。
不過(guò)與之相關(guān)的公眾對(duì)于LSD的恐懼也在與日俱增，不過(guò)利瑞的領(lǐng)軍地位已經(jīng)成了壞事。
他被視為一個(gè)越來(lái)越缺少公正的研究員，而越多地被人視作是一個(gè)宣傳員。
1962年，就在其大肆宣揚(yáng)過(guò)程中，哈佛的*蓋菇素項(xiàng)目被撤銷了。
利瑞帶著他的研究去了紐約北部的一個(gè)莊園，在那里他還組織了一系列的毒品聚會(huì)。
最終LSD和*蓋菇素都被禁止了。
這就是一個(gè)遺憾，因?yàn)榕c其他官方反對(duì)藥物的娛樂用途一樣，迷幻劑也有同樣的醫(yī)療應(yīng)用。
不過(guò)時(shí)間已經(jīng)撫平了所有的創(chuàng)傷，現(xiàn)在對(duì)于迷幻劑的醫(yī)療研究應(yīng)還是謹(jǐn)慎地歸來(lái)了。
在對(duì)其他治療方案都有抵觸的強(qiáng)迫癥形式，緩解頭痛（一種常見的慢性頭痛花形式）以及減輕晚期癌癥病人所歷經(jīng)的焦慮方面，*蓋菇素顯示出了希望的苗頭。
LSD的第一個(gè)臨床研究和在身患絕癥的病人方面的研究超過(guò)了35年了，預(yù)計(jì)會(huì)在這個(gè)夏季結(jié)束。
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)這個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)的瑞士醫(yī)生彼得?加塞（Peter Gasser）說(shuō)LSD和心理治療的結(jié)合緩解了12名參與者的焦慮程度，雖然該實(shí)驗(yàn)的統(tǒng)計(jì)意義還有待于分析。
對(duì)于LSD的研究并不局限于藥物方面。
例如，海弗特研究學(xué)會(huì)（Heffter Research Institute）的弗朗茨?沃爾溫德（Franz Vollenweider）正在掃描人的大腦，試圖搞清楚迷幻藥如何引起意識(shí)的變化。
生物技術(shù)也可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致新一代迷幻藥物的出現(xiàn)。
埃德溫?溫特姆特（Edwin Wintermute）和他在哈佛的同事已經(jīng)通過(guò)基因工程改造了酵母細(xì)胞，在產(chǎn)生麥角酸——LSD的前體——的六步反應(yīng)路徑中已經(jīng)實(shí)現(xiàn)了其中的兩步。
他們希望通過(guò)在短期內(nèi)加入其他的四步反應(yīng)。
一旦這個(gè)路徑打通，酵母就可以得到改良。
這或許就會(huì)產(chǎn)生類似于LSD藥物并且比原來(lái)更好迷幻劑。
即便這種情況沒有出現(xiàn)，不過(guò)在酵母中合成麥角酸依然是一個(gè)不錯(cuò)的構(gòu)想。
這種化合物可以用于包括麥角溴煙酯（用于治療老年性癡呆的治療藥物）在內(nèi)其他藥物的起點(diǎn)。
目前制造麥角溴煙酯的工藝仍然相當(dāng)復(fù)雜，它要用到麥角菌——一種寄生在黑麥中細(xì)菌。
當(dāng)然，LSD或許沒有臨床用途。
即使這種藥物沒有任何不光彩的地陷，那么大多數(shù)的臨床實(shí)驗(yàn)還將會(huì)以失敗告終。
此外，對(duì)于LSD能否履行其早期的承諾還值得一看。
如果利瑞的檔案能夠加速驅(qū)除困擾著LSD研究的鬼魂，那么紐約公共圖書館將是服務(wù)了整個(gè)世界。
Science and Technology LSD Acid tests
Research into hallucinogenic drugs begins to shake off decades of taboo
THE psychedelic era of the 1960s is remembered for its music, its art and, of course, its drugs.
Its science is somewhat further down the list.
But before the rise of the counterculture, researchers had been studying LSD as a treatment for everything from alcoholism to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), with promising results.
Timothy Leary, a psychologist at Harvard University, was one of the best-known workers in the field, but it was also he who was widely blamed for discrediting it, by his unconventional research methods and his lax handling of drugs.
Now, the details of Leary's research will be made public, with the recent purchase of his papers by the New York Public Library.
These papers will be interesting not only culturally, but also scientifically, as they reflect what happened between the early medical promise of hallucinogens and their subsequent blacklisting by authorities around the world.
American researchers began experimenting with LSD in 1949, at first using it to simulate mental illness.
Once its psychedelic effects were realised, they then tried it in psychotherapy and as a treatment for alcoholism, for which it became known at the time as a miracle cure.
By 1965 over 1,000 papers had been published describing positive results for LSD therapy. It, and its close chemical relative psilocybin, isolated from hallucinogenic mushrooms, were reported as having potential for treating anxiety disorders, OCD, depression, bereavement and even sexual dysfunction.
Unfortunately, most of the studies that came to these conclusions were flawed: many results were anecdotal, and control groups were not established to take account of the placebo effect.
Still, the field was ripe for further study.
But alongside growing public fear of LSD, Leary's leadership had become a liability.
He was seen less and less as a disinterested researcher, and more and more as a propagandist.
In 1962, amid wide publicity, the Harvard Psilocybin Project was shut down.
Leary took his research to an estate in upstate New York, where he also hosted a stream of drug parties.
Eventually both LSD and psilocybin were proscribed.
Which was a pity because, like many other drugs the authorities have taken against as a result of their recreational uses, hallucinogens have medical applications as well.
But time heals all wounds and now, cautiously, study of the medical use of hallucinogens is returning.
Psilocybin has shown promise in treating forms of OCD that are resistant to other therapies, in relieving cluster headaches (a common form of chronic headache) and in alleviating the anxiety experienced by terminally ill cancer patients.
The first clinical study of LSD in over 35 years, also on terminally ill patients, is expected to finish this summer.
Peter Gasser, the Swiss doctor leading the experiment, says that a combination of LSD and psychotherapy reduced anxiety levels of all 12 participants in the study, though the statistical significance of the data has yet to be analysed.
Research into LSD is not confined to medicine.
Franz Vollenweider, of the Heffter Research Institute in Zurich, for example, is scanning people's brains to try to understand how hallucinogenic drugs cause changes in consciousness.
And biotechnology may lead to a new generation of hallucinogenic drugs.
Edwin Wintermute and his colleagues at Harvard have engineered yeast cells to carry out two of six steps in the pathway needed to make lysergic acid, the precursor of LSD.
They hope to add the other four shortly.
Once the pathway has been created, it can be tweaked.
That might result in LSD-like drugs that are better than the original.
Even if that does not happen, making lysergic acid in yeast is still a good idea.
The chemical is used as the starting point for other drugs, including nicergoline, a treatment for senile dementia.
The current process for manufacturing it is a rather messy one involving ergot, a parasite of rye.
It may, of course, be that LSD has no clinical uses.
Even when no stigma attaches to the drugs involved, most clinical trials end in failure.
But it is worth seeing whether LSD might fulfil its early promise.
And if the publication of Leary's archive speeds that process up by exorcising a ghost that still haunts LSD research, then the New York Public Library will have done the world a service.
科技 麥角酸二乙基酰胺 迷幻藥之考驗(yàn)
迷幻藥物的研究開始擺脫幾十年來(lái)的禁忌
20世紀(jì)60年代是一個(gè)讓人產(chǎn)生迷幻的年代，這個(gè)時(shí)代因它的音樂，它的藝術(shù)，當(dāng)然還有它的毒品而被人記得。
而那個(gè)時(shí)候的科學(xué)在某種程度上則不太被人們熟知。
不過(guò)在反傳統(tǒng)文化興趣之前，隨著有價(jià)值的研究成果的出現(xiàn)，研究者們則正在研究LSD作為一種治療從酗酒到強(qiáng)迫癥（OCD）的方法。
哈佛大學(xué)的心理學(xué)家蒂莫西?利瑞（Timothy Leary）就是該領(lǐng)域最為知名的人士之一，不過(guò)他也因?yàn)槠浞莻鹘y(tǒng)的研究方法和他對(duì)對(duì)藥物不嚴(yán)格的處理而讓這個(gè)藥物聲名狼藉，進(jìn)而廣受詬病。
現(xiàn)在，隨著紐約公共圖書館購(gòu)買他的論文，利瑞研究的細(xì)節(jié)部分將公之于眾。
這些論文不僅在文化方面將會(huì)很有引人注意，在科學(xué)上也同樣如此，它們反應(yīng)了從早期迷幻劑的醫(yī)療承諾到它們隨后進(jìn)入全球各地政府黑名單的之間的所發(fā)生的事情。
美國(guó)的研究人員研究LSD始于1949年，那時(shí)他們第一次用這個(gè)化合物來(lái)模擬精神病。
迷幻效果一被發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們接著就在心理治療方面嘗試用它，它也同樣作為一個(gè)酗酒的治療方法，因?yàn)樵诋?dāng)時(shí)這個(gè)化合物以作為一個(gè)奇跡的治愈而得名。
到1965年時(shí)，已經(jīng)有一千多篇關(guān)于LSD治療的積極結(jié)果的論文發(fā)表。LSD以及與它相關(guān)的化合物*蓋菇素，后者是從迷幻蘑菇中分離出來(lái)的一種物質(zhì)，這二者都被報(bào)道有治療焦慮癥，強(qiáng)迫癥，抑郁癥，喪親之痛甚至是性功能障礙的潛質(zhì)。
不幸的是，這些結(jié)論大多數(shù)都是有缺陷的：許多的結(jié)果都是道聽途說(shuō)的，并沒有設(shè)立相應(yīng)的對(duì)照組以用來(lái)考慮安慰劑的影響。
盡管如此，但這個(gè)領(lǐng)域進(jìn)一步研究的時(shí)機(jī)已經(jīng)成熟了。
不過(guò)與之相關(guān)的公眾對(duì)于LSD的恐懼也在與日俱增，不過(guò)利瑞的領(lǐng)軍地位已經(jīng)成了壞事。
他被視為一個(gè)越來(lái)越缺少公正的研究員，而越多地被人視作是一個(gè)宣傳員。
1962年，就在其大肆宣揚(yáng)過(guò)程中，哈佛的*蓋菇素項(xiàng)目被撤銷了。
利瑞帶著他的研究去了紐約北部的一個(gè)莊園，在那里他還組織了一系列的毒品聚會(huì)。
最終LSD和*蓋菇素都被禁止了。
這就是一個(gè)遺憾，因?yàn)榕c其他官方反對(duì)藥物的娛樂用途一樣，迷幻劑也有同樣的醫(yī)療應(yīng)用。
不過(guò)時(shí)間已經(jīng)撫平了所有的創(chuàng)傷，現(xiàn)在對(duì)于迷幻劑的醫(yī)療研究應(yīng)還是謹(jǐn)慎地歸來(lái)了。
在對(duì)其他治療方案都有抵觸的強(qiáng)迫癥形式，緩解頭痛（一種常見的慢性頭痛花形式）以及減輕晚期癌癥病人所歷經(jīng)的焦慮方面，*蓋菇素顯示出了希望的苗頭。
LSD的第一個(gè)臨床研究和在身患絕癥的病人方面的研究超過(guò)了35年了，預(yù)計(jì)會(huì)在這個(gè)夏季結(jié)束。
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)這個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)的瑞士醫(yī)生彼得?加塞（Peter Gasser）說(shuō)LSD和心理治療的結(jié)合緩解了12名參與者的焦慮程度，雖然該實(shí)驗(yàn)的統(tǒng)計(jì)意義還有待于分析。
對(duì)于LSD的研究并不局限于藥物方面。
例如，海弗特研究學(xué)會(huì)（Heffter Research Institute）的弗朗茨?沃爾溫德（Franz Vollenweider）正在掃描人的大腦，試圖搞清楚迷幻藥如何引起意識(shí)的變化。
生物技術(shù)也可能會(huì)導(dǎo)致新一代迷幻藥物的出現(xiàn)。
埃德溫?溫特姆特（Edwin Wintermute）和他在哈佛的同事已經(jīng)通過(guò)基因工程改造了酵母細(xì)胞，在產(chǎn)生麥角酸——LSD的前體——的六步反應(yīng)路徑中已經(jīng)實(shí)現(xiàn)了其中的兩步。
他們希望通過(guò)在短期內(nèi)加入其他的四步反應(yīng)。
一旦這個(gè)路徑打通，酵母就可以得到改良。
這或許就會(huì)產(chǎn)生類似于LSD藥物并且比原來(lái)更好迷幻劑。
即便這種情況沒有出現(xiàn)，不過(guò)在酵母中合成麥角酸依然是一個(gè)不錯(cuò)的構(gòu)想。
這種化合物可以用于包括麥角溴煙酯（用于治療老年性癡呆的治療藥物）在內(nèi)其他藥物的起點(diǎn)。
目前制造麥角溴煙酯的工藝仍然相當(dāng)復(fù)雜，它要用到麥角菌——一種寄生在黑麥中細(xì)菌。
當(dāng)然，LSD或許沒有臨床用途。
即使這種藥物沒有任何不光彩的地陷，那么大多數(shù)的臨床實(shí)驗(yàn)還將會(huì)以失敗告終。
此外，對(duì)于LSD能否履行其早期的承諾還值得一看。
如果利瑞的檔案能夠加速驅(qū)除困擾著LSD研究的鬼魂，那么紐約公共圖書館將是服務(wù)了整個(gè)世界。