How to Focus to Change Your Brain | Huberman Lab Essentials

发布时间 2024-12-19 13:00:11 来源

好的，这是对Huberman Lab Essentials 关于神经可塑性的一集的总结，重点关注关键原则和可操作的工具： **神经可塑性：大脑的改变能力** 神经可塑性，即神经系统响应经验而发生改变的能力，是学习、适应和克服挑战的基础。虽然我们的大脑从出生起就被“设置为改变”，但随着年龄的增长，我们重新连接大脑的难易程度会降低。婴儿的神经系统为学习做好了准备，但随着经验的积累，神经系统会变得定制化，以适应独特的个人经历。然而，一些重要的回路，比如那些控制呼吸和心跳的回路，被设计为具有抗改变性。虽然大脑在青春期后停止产生大量的新神经元，但如果创造了正确的化学和环境条件，它仍然能够发生显著的改变。 **成人神经可塑性的三大支柱** Huberman强调，解锁成人神经可塑性的关键在于激活三个关键的神经化学系统： 1. **肾上腺素（肾上腺素）：** 这种神经化学物质，从脑干的蓝斑释放，发出警觉性和注意力的信号。产生肾上腺素包括利用恐惧、爱或恨作为学习的动力因素。 2. **乙酰胆碱（来自脑干）：** 这种神经调节剂，从上丘脑旁核释放，就像聚光灯一样，过滤感觉输入，增强“信噪比”。 3. **乙酰胆碱（来自基底核）：** 这种释放，加上脑干的乙酰胆碱和肾上腺素，创造了加强或削弱神经通路所必需的条件。播客强调，仅仅体验某事并不能保证大脑的改变。当我们有选择地转移注意力，以告诉大脑是时候改变时，才会发生改变。 **注意力是改变的关键驱动因素** 播客强调了集中注意力对于开启可塑性的重要性。实验表明，只要成年人将注意力集中在相关的感觉输入上，他们就可以迅速改变他们的大脑表征。仅仅是体验，没有集中的注意力，不会诱导可塑性。 **增强神经可塑性的实用工具** Huberman提供了几个可操作的工具，用于挖掘神经可塑性的机制： * **优先考虑警觉性：** 优化您的睡眠时间表，以确保在学习期间保持警觉。确定您自然最警觉的时间，并将这段时间用于专注学习。 * **利用动机：** 挖掘不同的动机来源——爱、恨、恐惧或个人目标——以提高您的警觉性和能量。 * **参与视觉聚焦：** 练习有意的视觉聚焦，以此来增强心理聚焦。您可以通过将您的视觉注意力保持在屏幕上的一个小的、静态的位置上来做到这一点。缩小您的视野，稍微向焦点交叉您的眼睛，会触发乙酰胆碱和肾上腺素的释放。 * **听觉聚焦：** 通过闭上眼睛并注意声音来使用听觉聚焦，这有助于创建一个听觉注意力的锥体。 * **以90分钟为一个单位进行聚焦：** 将学习会话组织成90分钟的周期，承认注意力会时而增强，时而减弱。可以通过移除设备来减少干扰。允许在开始时进行热身。 **休息和睡眠的重要性** 神经可塑性不仅仅发生在清醒时。巩固新的学习主要发生在睡眠期间。确保您在学习后获得足够的睡眠，并且学习没有受到干扰。如果睡眠不好，学习可能仍然会在第二天晚上发生。学习后立即进行的短暂的“非睡眠深度休息”（NSDR）或短时间的午睡（90分钟或更短）可以显著加速可塑性的速率。这些NSDR协议创造了一个空间，让你的大脑没有组织性的想法。 **结论** Huberman最后强调，可塑性发生在整个生命周期中。有了正确的工具，任何人都可以利用他们大脑的改变能力。达到一个人不害怕或羞于追求目标的地步，可以帮助创造更多的能量和注意力来为目标服务。通过理解可塑性的神经化学基础，并通过结合简单的行为技巧（如视觉注意力），人们可以在任何年龄学习和适应。

Here's a summary of the Huberman Lab Essentials episode on Neuroplasticity, focusing on key principles and actionable tools: **Neuroplasticity: The Brain's Capacity for Change** Neuroplasticity, the nervous system's ability to change in response to experience, is fundamental to learning, adaptation, and overcoming challenges. While our brains are "wired to change" from birth, the ease with which we can rewire our brains diminishes as we age. The nervous system of a baby is primed for learning, but with experience, the nervous system becomes customized to unique individual experiences. However, some essential circuits, like those controlling breathing and heartbeat, are designed to be resistant to change. While the brain stops producing significant numbers of new neurons after puberty, it remains capable of significant change if the right chemical and environmental conditions are created. **The Three Pillars of Adult Neuroplasticity** Huberman highlights that the key to unlocking neuroplasticity in adults lies in engaging three critical neurochemical systems: 1. **Epinephrine (Adrenaline):** This neurochemical, released from the locus coeruleus in the brainstem, signals alertness and attention. Generating epinephrine involves using fear, love, or hate as a motivating factor for learning. 2. **Acetylcholine (from Brainstem):** This neuromodulator, released from the parabigeminal nucleus, acts like a spotlight, filtering sensory input and enhancing the "signal-to-noise" ratio. 3. **Acetylcholine (from Nucleus Basalis):** This release, combined with the brainstem acetylcholine and epinephrine, creates the conditions necessary for neural pathways to strengthen or weaken. The podcast emphasizes that simply experiencing something doesn't guarantee brain change. Changes happen when we selectively shift our attention in a way that tells the brain it is time to change. **Attention as a Key Driver of Change** The podcast stresses the importance of focused attention to open up plasticity. Experiments reveal that adults can rapidly change their brain representations, provided they pay focused attention to the relevant sensory inputs. Mere experience, without focused attention, does not induce plasticity. **Practical Tools for Enhancing Neuroplasticity** Huberman provides several actionable tools for tapping into the mechanisms of neuroplasticity: * **Prioritize Alertness:** Optimize your sleep schedule to ensure alertness during learning periods. Identify the time of day when you are naturally most alert and dedicate this time to focused learning. * **Leverage Motivation:** Tap into different sources of motivation—love, hate, fear, or personal goals—to increase your alertness and energy. * **Engage Visual Focus:** Practice intentional visual focus as a way to enhance mental focus. You can do this by maintaining your visual attention on a small, static location on your screen. Narrowing your visual field and slightly crossing your eyes toward a focal point triggers the release of acetylcholine and epinephrine. * **Auditory Focus:** Use auditory focus by closing your eyes and attending to sounds, which helps create an cone of auditory attention. * **Focus in 90-Minute Bouts:** Structure learning sessions in 90-minute cycles, acknowledging that focus will ebb and flow. Distractions can be reduced by removing devices. Allow for warm-up at the start. **The Importance of Rest and Sleep** Neural plasticity doesn't solely occur during wakefulness. Consolidating new learnings occurs primarily during sleep. Make sure that you get enough sleep after a learning bout, and that learning is not interfered with. If sleep is poor, the learning may still occur the next night. Brief periods of "non-sleep deep rest" (NSDR) or short naps (90 minutes or less) immediately after learning can significantly accelerate the rate of plasticity. These NSDR protocols create a space where your mind is not organized in thought. **Conclusion** Huberman concludes by emphasizing that plasticity occurs throughout the lifespan. With the right tools, anyone can harness the power of their brain's capacity for change. Getting to the point when one is not afraid or ashamed to pursue goals, can help create more energy and attention for goals. Through understanding the neurochemical underpinnings of plasticity and by incorporating simple behavioral techniques such as visual attention, one can learn and adapt at any age.

摘要

In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explain how neuroplasticity allows the brain to continue to adapt and change ...

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中英文字稿

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. My name is Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we're talking about neuroplasticity, which is this incredible feature of our nervous systems that allows it to change in response to experience. Neural plasticity is arguably one of the most important aspects of our biology. It holds the promise for each and all of us to think differently, to learn new things, to forget painful experiences, and to essentially adapt to anything that life brings us by becoming better. So let's get started.

欢迎来到Huberman Lab Essentials。在这里，我们重温过去的节目，为您带来最有效、可实施的科学工具，以提升心理健康、身体健康和表现。我叫安德鲁·胡伯曼，是斯坦福大学医学院的神经生物学和眼科学教授。今天我们要讨论的是神经可塑性，这是一种我们神经系统的奇妙特性，它使我们的神经系统能够根据经验进行改变。可以说，神经可塑性是我们生物学最重要的方面之一。它为我们每个人提供了以不同方式思考、学习新事物、忘记痛苦经历的可能性，基本上让我们能够通过变得更好而适应生活中的任何变化。那么，让我们开始吧。

Most people are familiar with the word neuroplasticity, which is the brain and nervous system's ability to change itself. All of us were born with a nervous system that isn't just capable of change, but was designed to change. When we enter the world, our nervous system is primed for learning. The brain and nervous system of a baby is wired very crudely. The connections are not precise, and we can see evidence of that in the fact that babies are kind of flopping there, like a potato bug with limbs. They can't really do much in terms of coordinated movement. They certainly can't speak, and they can't really do anything with precision.

大多数人对“神经可塑性”这个词都很熟悉，它是指大脑和神经系统自行改变的能力。我们每个人一出生就拥有一个不仅能够改变，还被设计成能够改变的神经系统。当我们来到这个世界时，神经系统就已经准备好去学习。婴儿的大脑和神经系统连接得非常粗糙。这种不精确的连接可以通过婴儿的表现看出来，比如他们就像有手有脚的土豆虫一样软软地在那里。他们在协调运动方面几乎做不了什么，更不用说说话或任何需要精确操作的事情了。

So I want to imagine in your mind that when you were brought into this world, you were essentially a widely connected web of connections that was really poor at doing any one thing, and that through your experience, what you were exposed to by your parents or other caretakers, through your social interactions, through your thoughts, and the way you're doing it. Through your thoughts, through the languages that you learn, through the places you traveled or didn't travel, your nervous system became customized to your unique experience.

我想让你在脑海中想象一下，当你来到这个世界时，你就像一个四通八达的网络，连接很多但在某一件事情上做得都不太好。而通过你的经历，你的父母或其他养育者对你的影响，通过你的社交互动、你的想法，以及你做事的方式，通过你学习的语言，你去过或没去过的地方，你的神经系统逐渐适应并定制化为你独特的体验。

Now, that's true for certain parts of your brain that are involved in what we call representations of the outside world. A lot of your brain is designed to represent the visual world, or represent the auditory world, or represent the gallery of smells that are possible in the world. However, there are aspects of your nervous system that were designed not to be plastic. They were wired so that plasticity or changes in those circuits is very unlikely. Those circuits include things like the ones that control your heartbeat, the ones that control your breathing, the ones that control your digestion, and thank goodness that those circuits were set up that way, because you want those circuits to be extremely reliable.

现在，这对于大脑中涉及外部世界表征的某些部分是正确的。大脑的很大一部分是为了呈现视觉世界、听觉世界或各种可能的气味而设计的。然而，神经系统中有些部分并不是为了具有可塑性而设计的。它们的连接方式使得这些回路的可塑性或变化非常不可能。这些回路包括控制心跳的部分、控制呼吸的部分、控制消化的部分。幸运的是，这些回路被设计成这样，因为你希望这些回路非常可靠。

So, many nervous system features like digestion and breathing and heart rate are hard to change. Other aspects of our nervous system are actually quite easy to change. And one of the great gifts of childhood, adolescents and young adulthood, is that we can learn through almost passive experience. We don't have to focus that hard in order to learn new things. And then after age 25, if we want to change those connections, those superhighways of connectivity, we have to engage in some very specific processes.

许多神经系统的功能，如消化、呼吸和心率，很难改变。而神经系统的其他方面实际上是相对容易改变的。童年、青少年和年轻成人时期的一大优点是，我们可以通过几乎被动的经历来学习新事物，不需要特别专注。而在25岁之后，如果我们想改变这些神经连接，即那些高速通道般的连接，我们就需要通过一些非常具体的过程来实现。

And those processes, as we'll soon learn, are gated. Meaning, you can't just decide to change your brain. You actually have to go through a series of steps to change your internal state in ways that will allow you to change your brain. Many of us have been captivated by the stories in the popular press about the addition of new neurons, this idea. Oh, if you go running or you exercise, your brain actually makes new neurons. Well, I'm going to give you the bad news, which is that after puberty, the human brain and nervous system adds very few if any new neurons.

这些过程是受限制的，很快我们就会了解到。这意味着，你不能仅仅靠决定就改变大脑。实际上，你必须经历一系列步骤才能改变你的内部状态，以便能够改变你的大脑。许多人受到大众媒体报道的吸引，认为可以通过增加新的神经元来改变大脑，比如说，如果你去跑步或锻炼，大脑就会生成新的神经元。但我要告诉你一个坏消息，那就是在人过了青春期之后，人体的大脑和神经系统几乎不会再生成新的神经元。

So, even though we can't add new neurons throughout our lifespan, at least not in very great numbers, it's clear that we can change our nervous system, that the nervous system is available for change, that if we create the right set of circumstances in our brain, chemical circumstances, and if we create the right environmental circumstances around us, our nervous system will shift into a mode in which change isn't just possible, but it's probable.

所以，即使我们在人生过程中无法大量增加新的神经元，但显然，我们仍然可以改变我们的神经系统。神经系统是可以改变的，如果我们在大脑中创造正确的化学环境，并在我们周围创造合适的外部环境，我们的神经系统就会进入一种变化不仅可能发生，而且很有可能发生的状态。

As I mentioned before, the hallmark of the child nervous system is change. It wants to change. One of the ways in which we can all get plasticity at any stage throughout the lifespan is through deficits and impairments in what we call our sensory apparatus. That eye, our eyes, our ears, our nose, our mouth, in individuals that are blind from birth, the so-called occipital cortex, the visual cortex in the back becomes overtaken by hearing.

正如我之前提到的，儿童神经系统的显著特点是变化。它渴望改变。在整个生命周期中，我们都可以通过在所谓的感官系统中出现缺陷和障碍来获得这种可塑性。我们的眼睛、耳朵、鼻子和口腔都是感官的一部分。在一些从出生就失明的人身上，大脑背部的枕叶皮层，即视觉皮层，会被听觉功能占据。

The neurons there will start to respond to sounds as well as braille touch. And actually there's a one particularly tragic incident where a woman who was blind since birth, and because of neuroimaging studies, we knew her visual cortex was no longer visual. All of those responsible for braille reading and for hearing, she had a stroke that actually took out most of the function of her visual cortex. So then she was blind, she couldn't braille read or hear. She did recover some aspect of function. Now most people, they don't end up in that highly unfortunate situation. So, you know, is that for instance, blind people who use their visual cortex for braille reading and for hearing have much better auditory acuity and touch acuity, meaning they can sense things with their fingers and they can sense things with their hearing that typical sighted folks wouldn't be able to.

那里的神经元会开始对声音和盲文触觉产生反应。实际上，有一个特别悲惨的事件：一位自出生就失明的女性，由于神经影像学的研究，我们知道她的视觉皮层不再用于视觉，而是用于盲文阅读和听觉。不幸的是，她中风了，这次中风几乎摧毁了她视觉皮层的大部分功能。结果，她不仅失去了视觉，也无法再读取盲文或听声音。尽管如此，她还是恢复了一些功能。大多数人不会遇到这么不幸的情况。事实上，失明的人使用他们的视觉皮层来进行盲文阅读和听觉处理，这使他们在听觉敏锐度和触觉敏锐度方面表现得更好。也就是说，他们可以用手指感觉到和听力感受到普通视力正常的人无法感知的东西。

In fact, you will find a much greater incidence of perfect pitch in people that are blind. And that tells us that the brain, and in particular this area we call the neocortex, which is the outer part, is really designed to be a map of our own individual experience. So these, what I call experiments of impairment or loss, where somebody is blind from birth or deaf from birth, or maybe has a limb development impairment, where they have a stump instead of an entire limb with a functioning hand, their brain will represent the body plan that they have, not some other body plan. But the beauty of the situation is that the real estate up in the skull, that neocortex, the essence of it is to be a customized map of experience.

事实上，在盲人中你会发现完美音高的发生率更高。这告诉我们，大脑，尤其是被称为新皮质的区域（就是大脑的外部部分），实际上是为了映射我们每个人独特的经历而设计的。就像我称之为「缺损或失去的实验」的情况中，一个人天生失明或失聪，或者可能有肢体发育障碍（他们可能仅有一个残肢，而不是一只完整的手臂和手），他们的大脑会根据他们的身体情况来形成身体的映像，而不是其他身体的映像。但美妙之处在于，位于头颅中的新皮质，其核心功能就是成为一个量身定制的经验地图。

A few years ago, I was at a course and a woman came up to me and she said, you know, I wasn't teaching the course, I was in the course. And she said, I just have to tell you that every time you speak, it really stresses me out. And I said, well, I've heard that before. But do you want to be more specific? And she said, yeah, your tone of voice reminds me of somebody that I had a really terrible experience with. I said, well, okay, well, I can't change my voice, but I really appreciate that you acknowledge that. And it also will help explain why you seem to cringe every time I speak, which I hadn't noticed until then. But after that, I did notice she had a very immediate and kind of visceral response to my speech.

几年前，我参加了一个课程，一个女人走过来对我说话。她说，她不是这门课的老师，而是学员。她对我说，每次我开口说话，她都感到非常紧张。我回答说，我以前也听过类似的反馈，但她能解释得更具体一些吗？她说，我的声音让她想起了一个让她经历过非常糟糕事件的人。我说，好吧，我不能改变我的声音，但我很感激你能告诉我这一点。这也解释了为什么我每次说话时，你似乎都会不自在，这点我之前没有注意到。但在那之后，我确实注意到她对我的讲话有非常直接和本能的反应。

But in any event over the period of this two-week course, she would come back every once in a while and say, you know what? I think just by telling you that your voice was really difficult for me to listen to, it's actually becoming more tolerable to me. And by the end, we actually became pretty good friends and we're still in touch. And so what this says is that the recognition of something, whether or not that's an emotional thing or a desire to learn something else is actually the first step in neural plasticity.

在这个为期两周的课程期间，她不时回来找我，说，“你知道吗？我觉得通过告诉你你的声音真的很难听，反而让我慢慢能接受了。”到最后，我们竟然成了好朋友，现在还保持联系。这说明，无论是情感上的事情还是想学习的新东西，认识到这点其实是大脑可塑性的第一步。

I get up out of this chair and walk out of the door. I don't think about each step that I'm taking. And that's because I learned how to walk during development. But when we decide that we're going to shift some sort of behavior or some reaction or some new piece of information that we want to learn is something that we want to bring into our consciousness. That awareness is a remarkable thing because it cues the brain and the rest of the nervous system that when we engage in those reflexive actions going forward, that those reflexive actions are no longer fated to be reflexive.

我从椅子上站起来，走出门。这时我并没有刻意想每一步应该怎么走，因为我在成长过程中已经学会了如何走路。但当我们决定要改变某种行为或反应，或者要学习新信息时，我们就需要把这些纳入我们的意识中。这种意识是非常了不起的，因为它会提醒大脑和神经系统，当我们继续进行那些反射性动作时，这些动作不再只是下意识的反应。

Now if this sounds a little bit abstract, we're going to talk about protocols for how to do this. But the first step in neural plasticity is recognizing that you want to change something. We have to know what it is exactly that we want to change or if we don't know exactly what it is that we want to change, we at least have to know that we want to change something about some specific experience. Now there are specific protocols that science tells us we have to follow if we want those changes to occur. What it is is it's our four brain in particular, a prefrontal cortex signaling the rest of our nervous system that something that we're about to do here, feel or experience is worth paying attention to.

如果这听起来有些抽象，我们将讨论如何实现这一目标的具体步骤。但神经可塑性的第一步是认识到你想要改变某些东西。我们必须明确知道自己想改变的具体内容，或者如果不知道具体要改变什么，至少要知道自己想在某个特定经历中做出改变。科学告诉我们，如果我们希望这些变化发生，就必须遵循某些特定步骤。具体来说，我们的大脑，特别是前额叶皮层，会向整个神经系统发出信号，提示我们即将做的、感受或体验的事情值得关注。

So we'll pause there and then I'm going to move forward. One of the biggest lies in the universe that seems quite prominent right now is that every experience you have changes your brain. People love to say this, they love to say your brain is going to be different after this lecture that your brain is going to be different after today's class than it was two days ago. And that's absolutely not true. The nervous system doesn't just change because you experience something unless you're a very young child. The nervous system changes when certain neurochemicals are released and allow whatever neurons are active in the period in which those chemicals are swimming around to strengthen or weaken the connections of those neurons.

我们先暂停一下，然后我会继续前进。现在宇宙中似乎流传着一个非常显著的谎言，那就是你的每一次经历都会改变你的大脑。人们常常喜欢这样说，喜欢说在听完这个讲座后你的大脑会有所不同，或者说今天的课会让你的大脑与两天前不同。但这完全不是真的。神经系统不会因为你经历了什么事情而改变，除非你是一个非常年幼的孩子。神经系统的改变是因为某些神经化学物质的释放，它们让那些在化学物质弥散期间活跃的神经元的连接得到加强或减弱。

So when people tell you, oh, at the end of today's lecture, at the end of something, your brain is going to be completely different. That's simply not true. If you're older than 25, your brain will not change unless there's a selective shift in your attention or a selective shift in your experience that tells the brain it's time to change. And those changes occur through strengthening and weakening of particular connections. But the important thing to understand is that if we want something to change, we really need to bring an immense amount of attention to whatever it is that we want to change. This is very much linked to the statement I made earlier about the it all starts with an awareness.

所以，当有人告诉你，哦，在今天的讲座结束时，或者在某件事情结束时，你的大脑会完全不同，这根本不是真的。如果你超过25岁，你的大脑不会改变，除非你的注意力或经历发生了特定的转换，这让大脑意识到是时候改变了。这些变化通过特定连接的加强和减弱来实现。但重要的是要明白，如果我们想要改变某些东西，我们真的需要非常专注于我们想要改变的东西。这与我之前提到的一切都始于意识的说法密切相关。

Now, why is that attention important? In the early 90s, a graduate student by the name of Greg Reckonzone was in the laboratory of a guy named Mike Merzenick at UCSF. And they set out to test this idea that if one wants to change their brain, they need to do it early in life because the adult brain simply isn't plastic. It's not available for these changes. And they did a series of absolutely beautiful experiments. By now, I think we can say proving that the adult brain can change provided certain conditions are met.

为什么注意力很重要呢？在90年代初期，一位名叫Greg Reckonzone的研究生在加州大学旧金山分校跟随Mike Merzenick工作。他们着手测试一个想法：如果一个人想要改变他们的大脑，他们需要在生命早期进行，因为成人的大脑通常被认为缺乏可塑性，无法适应这样的变化。他们进行了一系列非常精彩的实验。现在，我想我们可以证明：只要满足某些条件，成人的大脑也是可以改变的。

Now, the experiments they did are tough. They were tough on the experimenter and they were tough on the subject. I'll just describe one. Let's say you were a subject in one of their experiments. You would come into the lab and you'd sit down on a table and they would record from or image your brain and look at the representation of your fingers, the digits, as we call them. And there would be a spinning drum, literally like a stone drum in front of your metal drum that had little bumps. Some of the bumps were spaced close together, some of the more spaced far apart.

现在，他们进行的实验非常艰难。这对实验者来说很难，对实验对象来说也很难。我来描述一个实验。假设你是他们实验中的一个对象。你会来到实验室，坐在一张桌子前，他们会记录或拍摄你的大脑图像，并观察你的手指的表现，也就是我们称之为“数字”的部分。在你面前会有一个旋转的鼓，就像一个石头做的鼓，其实是一个金属鼓，上面有小凸起。这些凸起有些是紧密排列的，而有些则间隔较远。

And they would do these experiments where they would expect their subjects to press a lever whenever, for instance, the bumps got closer together or further apart. And these were very subtle differences. So in order to do this, you really have to pay attention to the distance between the bumps. And these were not braille readers or anyone skilled in doing these kinds of experiments. What they found was that as people paid more and more attention to the distance between these bumps and they would signal when there was a change by pressing a lever, as they did that, there was very rapid changes, plasticity in the representation of the fingers.

他们会进行这样的实验，要求参与者在突起之间的距离变得更近或更远时按下一个杠杆。需要注意的是，这些变化非常细微。因此，要完成这个任务，参与者需要非常仔细地观察突起之间的距离。这些参与者并不是盲文阅读者，也没有相关实验的经验。实验结果显示，随着人们越来越关注这些突起之间的距离，并在距离发生变化时通过按杠杆进行信号提示，这个过程中，人们大脑中与手指相关的区域发生了快速的变化和可塑性。

And it could go in either direction. You could get people very good at detecting the distance between bumps that the distance was getting smaller or the distance was getting greater. So people could get very good at these tasks that you're kind of hard to imagine how they would translate to the real world for a non-braille reader. But what it told us is that these maps of touch were very much available for plasticity. And these were fully adult subjects. What it proved is that the adult brain is very plastic.

这句话可以翻译为： "结果可能向不同的方向发展。人们可能会非常擅长识别凸起之间的距离，看这些距离是在变小还是变大。因此，人们能表现得非常好，尽管这种任务对于不懂盲文的人来说很难想象如何应用到现实世界中。不过，这证明了触觉的这些映射图具有很大的可塑性。而且，这些实验对象都是完全成年的成年人。这一发现证明了成人的大脑具有高度的可塑性。"

And they did some beautiful control experiments that are important for everyone to understand, which is that sometimes they would bring people in and they would have them touch these bumps on this spinning drum. But they would have the person pay attention to an auditory cue every time a tone would go off or there was a shift in the pitch of that tone, they would have to signal that. So the subject thought they were doing something related to touch and hearing and all that showed was that it wasn't just the mere action of touching these bumps.

他们做了一些很漂亮的对照实验，对所有人来说都很重要，大家需要理解这一点。有时候他们会让参与者来触摸这个旋转鼓上的凸起，但同时要求他们关注一个声音信号，每当听到声音响起或音调发生变化时，参与者就要做出反应。参与者以为他们是在进行与触觉和听觉相关的实验，而这些实验表明，并不仅仅是触摸这些凸起的动作本身在起作用。

They had to pay attention to the bumps themselves. If they had were placing their attention on the auditory cue on the tone, well then there was plasticity in the auditory portion of the brain, but not on the touch portion of the brain. And this really spits in the face of this thing that you hear so often, which is every experience that you have is going to change the way your brain works. Absolutely not. The experiences that you pay super careful attention to are what open up plasticity and it opens up plasticity to that specific experience.

他们必须关注那些凸起本身。如果他们把注意力放在听觉信号上，比如音调，那么听觉区域的大脑会发生可塑性变化，而触觉区域却不会。这实际上挑战了我们常常听到的一种说法，即你所有的经历都会改变大脑的运作。事实并非如此。只有那些你非常仔细关注的经历，才会开启大脑的可塑性，并且这种可塑性仅限于那些特定的经历。

So the question then is why and Merzenick and his graduate students and postdocs went on to address this question of why and it turns out the answer is a very straightforward neurochemical answer. And the first neurochemical is epinephrine also adrenaline. We call it adrenaline when it's released from the adrenal glands above our kidneys, that's in the body. We call epinephrine in the brain, but they are chemically identical substances.

那么问题就变成了“为什么”，Merzenich和他的研究生以及博士后继续研究这个“为什么”的问题，结果发现答案其实是一个非常简单的神经化学答案。第一个神经化学物质是肾上腺素，也叫肾上腺素激素。当它从我们肾上方的肾上腺释放时，我们称之为肾上腺素，那是在身体里。当它在大脑中时，我们称之为去甲肾上腺素，但它们在化学上是相同的物质。

Epinephrine is released from a region in the brainstem called locus serulius. Epinephrine is released when we pay attention and when we are alert. But the most important thing for getting plasticity is that there be epinephrine, which equates to alertness, plus the release of this neuromodulator aceto-coline. Now aceto-coline is released from two sites in the brain. One is also in the brainstem and it's named different things and different animals, but in humans, the most rich site of aceto-coline neurons, or neurons that make aceto-coline is the parabigeminal nucleus, or the parabricule region.

肾上腺素（Epinephrine）是从脑干的一个区域，即蓝斑（locus coeruleus）释放的。当我们集中注意力或保持警觉时，肾上腺素会被释放。而促使大脑产生可塑性的最重要因素是，必须有肾上腺素（代表警觉性）和神经调节物质乙酰胆碱（aceto-coline）的释放。乙酰胆碱是从大脑的两个位置释放的，其中一个位置也在脑干，并且在不同的动物中有不同的命名，而在人类中，乙酰胆碱神经元（生产乙酰胆碱的神经元）最丰富的部位是副四叠体核（parabigeminal nucleus），也称为副上丘脑区（parabricule region）。

All you need to know is that you have an area in your brainstem and that area sends wires, these axons, up into the area of the brain that filters sensory input. So we have this area of the brain called the thalamus and it is getting bombarded with all sorts of sensory input all the time. But when I pay attention to something, I create a cone of attention, what we call signal to noise goes up. So as a view with an engineering background, we'll be familiar with signal to noise; those of you not have an engineering background, don't worry about it. All it means is that one particular shout in the crowd comes through aceto-coline acts as a spotlight.

你需要知道的是，你的脑干有一个区域，这个区域向大脑中一个过滤感官输入的区域发送神经纤维，即轴突。这个大脑区域叫做丘脑，它一直在接收各种感官输入。但当我注意到某个东西时，我就会在注意的地方形成一个聚焦，这就是所谓的信号增强。对于有工程背景的人，这很像“信噪比”的概念；如果你没有工程背景，也不用担心。简单来说，就是在人群中有一个特定的声音能够被突出，乙酰胆碱就像一束聚光灯一样让它变得更加显眼。

But epinephrine for alertness, aceto-coline spotlighting these inputs, those two things alone are not enough to get plasticity. There needs to be this third component and the third component is aceto-coline released from an area of the four brain called nucleus basalus. If you really want to get technical, it's called nucleus basalus of my nerd. For any of you that are budding physicians or going to medical school, you should know that. If you have aceto-coline released from the brainstem, aceto-coline released from nucleus basalus, and epinephrine, you can change your brain.

为了提高警觉，依靠肾上腺素，而乙酰胆碱则对信息起到聚焦作用。但是，仅仅依靠这两者还不足以实现大脑的可塑性。还需要第三个成分，那就是从大脑前部的一个区域——基底核（nucleus basalis）释放的乙酰胆碱。对于那些即将成为医生或正在上医学院学习的人来说，这一点是值得注意的。只有当来自脑干的乙酰胆碱、基底核释放的乙酰胆碱和肾上腺素同时存在时，你才能真正改变你的大脑。

This has been shown again and again and again in a variety of papers, and it is now considered a fundamental principle of how the nervous system works. If you can access these three things, of epinephrine aceto-coline from these two sources, not only will the nervous system change, it has to change. It absolutely will change. And that is the most important thing for people to understand if they want to change their brain.

这已经在各种论文中反复证明，现在被认为是神经系统运作的基本原理。如果你能够从这两个来源获取这三种物质：肾上腺素和乙酰胆碱，神经系统不仅会改变，它必须改变，绝对会改变。这是非常重要的一点，尤其对于那些希望改变自己大脑的人来说。

Now let's talk about how we would translate all the scientific information into some protocols that you can actually apply. Because I think that's what many of you are interested in, what you do with your health and your medical care is up to you, you're responsible for your health and well-being. So I'm not going to tell you what to do or what to take. I'm going to describe what the literature tells us and suggests about ways to access plasticity.

现在让我们来谈谈如何将所有科学信息转化为你可以实际应用的方案。因为我相信这是许多人感兴趣的内容，你的健康和医疗护理由你自己决定，你对自己的健康和幸福负责。所以，我不会告诉你该做什么或者该吃什么。我会描述文献告诉我们的内容，并建议一些可以促进可塑性的方法。

We know we need epinephrine, that means alertness. Most people accomplish this through a cup of coffee and a good night's sleep. So I will say you should master your sleep schedule and you should figure out how much sleep you need in order to achieve alertness when you sit down to learn. But once that's in place, the question then is how do I access this alertness? Well, there are a number of ways. Some people use some pretty elaborate psychological gymnastics.

我们知道我们需要肾上腺素，这意味着保持警觉。大多数人通过喝一杯咖啡和获得良好的睡眠来实现这一点。因此，我会建议你掌握好自己的睡眠时间，并找出自己需要多少睡眠才能在学习时保持警觉。但是一旦你做好了这些，接下来的问题是如何获得这种警觉呢？其实有很多方法。有些人会利用一些相当复杂的心理技巧。

They will tell people that they're going to do something and create some accountability. That could be really good. Or they'll post a picture of themselves online and they'll commit to learning a certain amount of weight or something like this. So they can use either shame-based practices to potentially embarrass themselves if they don't follow through. They'll write checks to organizations that they hate and insist that they'll cash them if they don't actually follow through. Or they'll do it out of love. They'll decide that they're going to run a marathon or learn a language or something because of somebody they love or they want to devote it to somebody.

他们会告诉别人他们计划做一些事情，这样可以产生一定的责任感。这可能会非常有效。或者，他们会在网上发布自己的照片，并承诺要学会举起一定的重量或做类似的事情。因此，他们可能会利用基于羞耻的方法来激励自己，以免因不履行承诺而感到尴尬。他们甚至会开出支票给他们讨厌的组织，并坚持说如果不兑现承诺，这些支票就会被兑现。也有人会因爱而行动。他们可能会因为爱一个人，或者想把这项成就献给某个人，而决定去跑马拉松或学习一门语言。

The truth is that from the standpoint of epinephrine and getting alert and activated, it doesn't really matter. Epinephrine is a chemical and your brain does not distinguish between doing things out of love or hate, anger or fear. It really doesn't. All of those promote autonomic arousal and the release of epinephrine. So I think for most people, if you're feeling not motivated to make these changes, the key thing is to identify not just one but probably a kit of reasons.

事实是，从肾上腺素的角度来看，要让自己警觉和活跃起来，其实并没有太大区别。肾上腺素是一种化学物质，在你的大脑中，它不会区分你是出于爱还是恨，愤怒还是恐惧而做事情。所有这些情绪都会引发自主神经系统的兴奋和肾上腺素的释放。所以我认为，对于大多数人来说，如果你感到缺乏动力去做出改变，关键在于找出多个原因，而不是仅仅一个。

Several reasons as to why you would want to make this particular change. And being drawn toward a particular goal that you're excited about can be one. Also being motivated to not be completely afraid, ashamed, or humiliated for not following through on a goal is another. Come up with two or three things. Fear-based, perhaps, love-based, perhaps, or perhaps several of those in order to ensure alertness, energy and attention for the task.

有几个理由可能会让你想做出这个特别的改变。一个原因可能是你对某个让你感到兴奋的目标充满渴望。同时，也可能是你不想因为没能坚持一个目标而感到害怕、羞愧或者尴尬。想出两到三个原因，可能是基于恐惧的，可能是基于爱的，或者可能是多种原因，以确保在完成任务时保持警觉、精力充沛和专注。

And that brings us to the attention part. Now it's one thing to have an electrode embedded into your brain and increase the amount of aceto-coline. It's another to exist in the real world outside the laboratory and have trouble focusing, having trouble bringing your attention to a particular location and space for a particular event. And there's a lot of discussion nowadays about smartphones and devices creating a sort of attention deficit. Almost at a clinical level for many people, including adults. I think that's largely true. And what it means, however, is that we all are responsible for learning how to create depth of focus.

这就引出了注意力的问题。将电极植入大脑并增加乙酰胆碱的量是一回事，但在现实世界中，离开实验室后很可能会在某个地方或事件上难以集中注意力。这方面的讨论越来越多，尤其是关于智能手机和设备如何造成某种注意力缺失，甚至对许多成年人来说几乎达到了临床水平。我认为这在很大程度上是事实。但这也意味着我们每个人都有责任学习如何提升注意力的深度。

There are some important neuroscience principles to get depth of focus. I want to briefly talk about the pharmacology first because I always get asked about this. People say, what can I take to increase my levels of aceto-calling? Well, there are things you can take. Nicotine is called nicotine because aceto-calling binds to the nicotinic receptor. There are two kinds of aceto-calling receptors, muscarinic and nicotinic, but the nicotinic ones are involved in attention and alertness. I have colleagues, these are not my, you know, kind of like, bro-science buddies. I have those friends too. This is a Nobel Prize-winning colleague who choose nicorette while he works.

要获得深入的专注，有一些重要的神经科学原理。我想先简单谈谈药理学，因为人们总是问我这个问题。大家常问，有什么可以增加体内乙酰胆碱水平的东西吗？确实有一些东西可以帮助你。尼古丁这个名字就是因为乙酰胆碱可以结合到尼古丁受体上。乙酰胆碱受体有两种，分别是毒蕈碱型和尼古丁型，但尼古丁型受体与注意力和警觉性有关。我有一些同事，不是那种随便说说的朋友，我也有这样的朋友。这是一位诺贝尔奖得主的同事，他在工作时嚼含尼古丁的口香糖。

But when I asked him why you're doing this, he said, well, increases my alertness and focus. Now, I've tried chewing nicorette, it makes me super jittery. I don't like it because I can't focus very well. It kind of takes me too far up the level of autonomic arousal. I've got friends that dip nicorette all day. If you're going to go down that route, you want to be very careful how much you rely on those all the time. Because the essence of plasticity is to create a window of attention and focus that's distinct from the rest of your day. So what are some ways that you can increase aceto-calling?

当我问他为什么这样做时，他说，这样可以提高我的警觉性和专注力。我尝试过嚼尼古丁口香糖，它让我感到非常紧张。我不喜欢它，因为我无法很好地集中注意力。这让我在自主激活水平上过于兴奋。我有一些朋友整天嚼尼古丁口香糖。如果你也想这样，一定要小心，不要过度依赖这些东西。因为学习和记忆的本质是要创造一个与日常生活不同的专注和集中窗口。那么，有哪些方法可以增加乙酰胆碱呢？

How do you increase focus? The best way to get better at focusing is to use the mechanisms of focus that you were born with. And the key principle here is that mental focus follows visual focus. We are all familiar with the fact that our visual system can be unfocused, blurry, or jumping around, or we can be very laser focused on one location in space. What's interesting and vitally important to understanding how to access neural plasticity is that you can use your visual focus. And you can increase your visual focus as a way of increasing your mental focus abilities more broadly.

如何提高注意力？提高注意力的最佳方法是利用你与生俱来的注意力机制。这里的关键原则是，注意力跟随视觉焦点。我们都知道视觉系统可能会变得模糊不清、无法集中，或者到处跳动，也可以像激光一样集中在一个空间位置。令人感兴趣且极其重要的是，理解如何利用神经可塑性可以通过视觉焦点来实现。通过增强视觉焦点，你可以更广泛地提高你的心理专注能力。

So I'm going to explain how to do that. Plasticity starts with alertness. That alertness can come from a sense of love, a sense of joy, a sense of fear, doesn't matter. There are pharmacologic ways to access alertness too. The most common one is of course caffeine. Many people are now also using aterol. Aterol will not increase focus. It increases alertness. It does not touch the aceto-calling system. The aceto-calling system and the focus that it brings is available, as I mentioned through pharmacology, but also through these behavioral practices.

我来解释一下该怎么做。可塑性始于警觉。这种警觉可以来自爱的感觉、快乐的感觉或恐惧的感觉，都可以。也有药物方法能让人更警觉，其中最常见的当然是咖啡因。现在很多人也在使用一种叫做阿得拉尔的药物。阿得拉尔不会增加专注力，它只是提高警觉性，并不涉及乙酰胆碱系统。乙酰胆碱系统及其带来的专注力，不仅可以通过药物获得，还可以通过一些行为练习来实现。

And the behavioral practices that are anchored in visual focus are going to be the ones that are going to allow you to develop great depth and duration of focus. So let's think about visual focus for a second. When we focus on something visually, we have two options. We can either look at a very small region of space with a lot of detail and a lot of precision, or we can dilate our gaze and we can see big pieces of visual space with very little detail. It's a trade-off. We can't look at everything at high resolution. This is why we have these, the pupil more or less relates to the fovea of the eye, which is the area in which we have the most receptors, the highest density of receptors that perceive light.

那些基于视觉注意力的行为练习将使你能够培养出深度和持久的专注力。我们来想想视觉注意力。当我们专注看一样东西时，有两种方式可以选择。我们可以聚焦于一个很小的空间区域，捕捉其中的细节和精确信息；或者我们可以扩展视野，看到更大范围的视野，但细节较少。这是一个取舍问题，我们无法同时以高分辨率看到所有东西。这就是为什么瞳孔与眼睛的中央凹有一定关系，中央凹是光感受器最密集的区域，能帮助我们更清晰地感知光线。

And so our acuity is much better in the center of our visual field than in our periphery. When we focus our eyes, we do a couple of things. First of all, we tend to do that in the center of our visual field and our two eyes tend to align in what's called a virgins eye movement towards a common point. The other thing that happens is the lens of our eye moves so that our brain now no longer sees the entire visual world but is seeing a small cone of visual imagery. That small cone of visual imagery or so-destraw view of the world has much higher acuity, higher resolution than if I were to look at everything.

因此，我们的视觉敏锐度在视野中心比在周边要好得多。当我们集中注意力时，会做几件事情。首先，我们通常会把注意力集中在视野中心，而我们的两只眼睛会进行所谓的汇合眼球运动，对准一个共同的点。与此同时，我们眼睛的晶状体会调整位置，这样大脑就不再看到整个视觉世界，而是看到一个小范围的图像。这个小范围的视觉图像，比起我们试图看全部东西时，具有更高的敏锐度和更高的分辨率。

Now you say, of course, this makes perfect sense, but that's about visual attention, not mental attention. Well, it turns out that focus in the brain is anchored to our visual system. I'll talk about blind people in a moment, but assuming that somebody has sighted, the key is to learn how to focus better visually. If you want to bring about higher levels of cognitive or mental focus. When we move our eyes slightly inward, maybe you can tell that I'm doing this, like, so basically shortening or making the interpupillary distance as it's called smaller.

现在你可能会说，这当然很有道理，但这讲的是视觉注意力，不是心理注意力。不过，事实证明，专注力在大脑中是与我们的视觉系统相连的。我稍后会谈到盲人，但假设一个人是有视力的，那么关键是要学会如何更好地进行视觉专注。如果你想提高认知或心理专注水平。当我们稍微向内移动眼睛时，你可能会注意到我在这样做，实际上就是缩短瞳距。

Two things happen, not only do we develop a smaller visual window into the world, but we activate a set of neurons in our brainstem that trigger the release of both neuroponephrine, epinephrine, and aceto-colon. Neuroponephrine is kind of similar to epinephrine. So in other words, when our eyes are relaxed in our head, when we're just kind of looking at our entire visual environment, moving our head around, moving through space, we're in optic flow, things moving past us, we're sitting still, we're looking broadly at our space, we're relaxed. When our eyes move slightly inward toward a particular visual target, our visual world shrinks, our level of visual focus goes up, and we know that this relates to the release of aceto-colon and epinephrine at the relevant sites in the brain for plasticity.

有两件事情发生。首先，我们的视觉范围变得更小。其次，我们大脑中的特定神经元被激活，从而触发去甲肾上腺素、肾上腺素和乙酰胆碱的释放。去甲肾上腺素与肾上腺素有点相似。换句话说，当我们的眼睛放松时，我们在脑海中漫游，随意地观察周围的视觉环境，头部也在移动，这时我们可以看到周围的变化。这时，我们是放松的。如果我们的眼睛略微聚焦于特定的目标，视觉范围就会缩小，视觉专注度会提高。研究表明，这与大脑中塑性相关部位释放乙酰胆碱和肾上腺素有关系。

Now what this means is that if you have a hard time focusing your mind for sake of reading or for listening, you need to practice and you can practice focusing your visual system. Now this works best if you practice focusing your visual system at the precise distance from the work that you intend to do for sake of plasticity. Now let's see how this look in the real world. Let's say I am trying to concentrate on something related to, I don't know, science, I'm reading a science paper and I'm having a hard time, it's not absorbing. Spending just 60 to 120 seconds, focusing my visual attention on a small window of my screen, meaning just on my screen with nothing on it, but bringing my eyes to that particular location, it increases not just my visual acuity for that location, but it brings about an increase in activity in a bunch of other brain areas that are associated with gathering information from this location.

现在，这意味着如果你在阅读或听东西时难以集中注意力，你需要练习，而且你可以通过练习视觉系统的聚焦来提高注意力。这种方法效果最好的是在你打算进行工作的精确距离上进行视觉聚焦练习，因为这样有助于提高大脑的可塑性。那么，让我们看看这在现实世界中的表现。假设我试图专注于某些科学相关的事情，比如我正在读一篇科学论文，但很难吸收其中的信息。这时，只需花费60到120秒的时间，将视觉注意力集中在屏幕上的一个小窗口上，意思是只看屏幕的某个位置，没有其他干扰，眼睛专注于这一特定位置。这不仅会提高我在该位置上的视觉敏锐度，还会提升与从该位置获取信息相关的其他脑区的活动。

So put simply if you want to improve your ability to focus, practice visual focus. Now you may ask well what about the experiment where people are feeling this rotating drum or listening to the auditory cue, that does involve vision at all. If you look at people who are learning things with their auditory system, they will often close their eyes and that's not a coincidence. If somebody is listening very hard, please don't ask them to look you directly in the eye while also asking that they listen to you. That's actually one of the worst ways to get somebody to listen to you. If you say now listen to me and look me in the eye, the visual system will take over and they'll see your mouth move, but they're going to hear their thoughts more, they're going to hear what you're saying.

简单来说，如果你想提高专注力，可以练习视觉专注。你可能会问，那对于那些通过触摸旋转鼓或听声音提示进行实验的人如何呢？这些实验似乎不涉及视觉。如果你观察那些用听觉系统学习的人，他们通常会闭上眼睛，这并不是巧合。当一个人专注听的时候，千万不要要求他们同时直视你的眼睛。这样反而是让他们听你说话的最糟糕方法之一。如果你说“听我说，看着我”，他们的视觉系统会占据主导，他们会看到你的嘴在动，但却可能更注意自己的思绪，而不是听到你在说些什么。

Closing the eyes is one of the best ways to create a cone of auditory attention and this is what low vision or no vision folks do. They have tremendous capacity to focus their attention in particular locations. Most people's vision is the primary way to train up this focus ability and these cones of attention. So you absolutely have to focus on the thing that you're trying to learn and you will feel some agitation because of the epinephrine in your system if you're feeling agitation and it's challenging to focus and you're feeling like you're not doing it right, chances are you're doing it right. Once you get this epinephrine, this alertness, you get the aceto-calling released and you can focus your attention then the question is for how long?

闭上眼睛是集中听觉注意力的最佳方法之一，视力低下或失明的人就是这样做的。他们能够非常集中地关注特定位置上的声音。大多数人主要通过视觉来训练这种专注能力和注意力的集中。因此，当你学习某件事时，必须全神贯注于它，你可能会感到一些不安，这是因为你体内的肾上腺素。如果你感到了不安，觉得难以集中注意力，或者觉得自己做得不对，很可能其实你做得对。当你有了肾上腺素带来的警觉性，会释放乙酰胆碱，让你能更好地集中注意力。接下来的问题是，你可以专注多久呢？

In an earlier podcast I talked about these all trading cycles that last about 90 minutes, the typical learning bout should be about 90 minutes. I think that learning bout will no doubt include five to ten minutes of warm up period. I think everyone should give themselves permission to not be fully focused in the early part of that bout but in the middle of that bout for the middle hour so you should be able to maintain focus for about an hour or so. So that for me means eliminating distractions. That means turning off the Wi-Fi, I put my phone in the other room. I encourage you to try experiencing what it is to be completely immersed in an activity where you feel the agitation that your attention is drifting but you continually bring it back.

在之前的一期播客中，我谈到了那些大约持续90分钟的交易周期，通常的学习时间也应该是90分钟左右。我认为，学习时间无疑会包括五到十分钟的热身期。我觉得每个人都应该允许自己在这一阶段的早期不必全神贯注，但在中期的那一个小时左右，你应该能够保持专注。对我来说，这意味着要消除干扰。这就需要关闭Wi-Fi，把手机放在另一个房间。我鼓励你去体验完全沉浸在一项活动中的感觉，尽管你会感到注意力开始分散，但要不断地把注意力拉回来。

That's an important point which is that attention drifts but we have to re-anchor it, we have to keep grabbing it back and the way to do that if you're sighted is with your eyes. As your attention drifts and you look away, you want to try and literally maintain visual focus on the thing that you're trying to learn. That's the trigger for plasticity but the real secret is that neural plasticity doesn't occur during wakefulness, it occurs during sleep. We now know that if you focus very hard on something for about 90 minutes or so maybe you even do several bouts of that per day. If you can do that some people can, some people can only do one focus bout of learning. That night and the following nights while you sleep the neural circuits that were highlighted if you will with the CETO Culling transmission will strengthen and other ones will be lost.

这是一个重要的观点，即我们的注意力会分散，但我们必须重新集中注意力。对于有视觉能力的人来说，保持注意力的一个方法是用眼睛。当你注意力分散，视线游离时，你需要尽量保持对你正在学习内容的视觉聚焦。这是大脑可塑性的触发点，但真正的秘诀在于神经可塑性并不是在清醒时发生的，而是在睡眠中发生的。我们现在知道，如果你在某件事情上非常专注，例如持续约90分钟，每天甚至可以进行几次这样的专注训练。有些人可以做到这点，而有些人只能进行一次这样的专注学习。当天晚上以及接下来的几个晚上，在睡眠中，那些通过细胞传递突显的神经回路会得到加强，而不重要的回路则会被削弱。

Which is wonderful because that's the essence of plasticity and what it means is that when you eventually wake up a couple days or a week later you will have acquired the knowledge forever unless you go through some process to actively unlearn it. So mastering sleep is key in order to reinforce the learning that occurs but let's say you get a really poor night of sleep after a bout of learning. Chances are if you sleep the next night or the following night that learning will occur. There's a stamp in the brain where the CETO Culling was released. It actually marks those synapses neurochemically and metabolically so that those synapses are more biased to change. Now if you don't ever get that deep sleep then you probably won't get those changes.

这很美妙，因为这正是神经可塑性的本质。意思是，当你在几天或一周后醒来时，你会永久获得这些知识，除非你主动去遗忘。所以，掌握好睡眠是巩固学习成果的关键。不过，如果在学习之后的一晚睡眠很差，不用担心，只要接下来几晚好好休息，这些学习成果还是会得到巩固。大脑中有一个印记，称为CETO去除，它实际上在神经化学和代谢上标记那些突触，使得它们更容易发生变化。不过，如果你从未进入深度睡眠，那这些变化可能就不会发生。

There's also a way in which you can bypass the need for deep sleep at least partially by engaging in what I call non-sleep deep rest these NSTR protocols. But I just want to discuss the science of this. There was a paper that was published in cell reports last year that shows that if people did it was a spatial memory task. It's actually quite difficult one where they had to remember the sequence of lights lighting up and if there are just two or three lights in a particular sequence it's easy but as you get up to 15 or 16 lights and think numbers in the sequence actually gets quite challenging. If immediately after and it was immediately after the learning the actual performance of this task people took a 20 minute non-sleep deep rest protocol or took a shallow nap so lying down, feet slightly elevated.

你可以通过一种方法至少部分地绕过深度睡眠的需要，即参与我称之为非睡眠深度休息（NSTR）的协议。不过，我想先讨论一下这方面的科学。去年在《细胞报告》上发表了一篇论文，显示了人们在进行一个空间记忆任务时的表现。这个任务相当困难，他们需要记住一系列灯光的亮起顺序。如果只有两三盏灯按照特定顺序亮起，相对容易，但当数量增加到15或16盏时，记住这些序列就变得相当有挑战性。如果在学习这个任务之后，人们立即进行20分钟的非睡眠深度休息，或者进行一个短暂的浅层小睡（身体躺下，双脚稍微抬高），效果就会不同。

Perhaps just closing their eyes no sensory input. The rates of learning were significantly higher for that information than were that to just had a good night sleep the following night. So you can actually accelerate learning with these NSTR protocols or with brief naps 90 minutes or less. For many people letting the mind drift where it's not organized in thought after a period of very deliberate focused effort is the best way to accelerate learning and depth of learning. I want to synthesize some of the information that we've covered up until now. Today I want to make sure that these key elements that form the backbone of neuroplasticity are really embedded in people's minds.

或许，只是闭上眼睛，不接收任何感官输入。相比于仅仅有一个良好的夜晚睡眠，这些信息的学习速度显著更高。所以，你实际上可以通过这些无刺激休息（NSTR）协议或者短暂的午睡（90分钟或更短）来加速学习。对于许多人来说，在一段非常有针对性的专注努力之后，让大脑自由漂移，不被条理化思维所束缚，是加速和加深学习的最佳方式。我想要综合一下我们之前讨论过的一些信息。今天，我希望确保构成神经可塑性核心的关键要素能够真正深入人心。

First of all plasticity occurs throughout the lifespan. If you want to learn as an adult you have to be alert. It might seem so obvious but I think a lot of people don't think about when in their 24 hour cycle their most alert. Just ask yourself when during the day do you typically tend to be most alert that will afford you an advantage in learning specific things during that period of time. So don't give up that period of time for things that are meaningless useless or not aligned with your goals. That epinephrine released from your brain stem is going to occur more readily at particular phases of your 24 hour cycle than others during the waking phase.

首先，神经可塑性在人的一生中都会发生。成年后如果想要学习，你需要保持警觉。尽管这看起来很明显，但我认为很多人并没有考虑过自己在一天中的哪个时间段最为清醒。你可以问问自己，一天中你通常在哪个时间段最清醒，这样你就可以在那个时间段更有效地学习特定的内容。因此，不要把这个时间浪费在无关紧要、无用或不符合你目标的事情上。在清醒阶段，你大脑干释放的肾上腺素会在你24小时周期的特定阶段更容易出现。

Of course you should know when those are increasing acetylcholine can be accomplished pharmacologically through nicotine. However there are certain dangers for many people to do that as well as a cost financial cost. Learning how to engage the colonelgic system through the use of the visual system. Practicing how long can you maintain focus with blanks as you need them. But how long can you maintain visual focus on a target just on a piece of paper set a few feet away in the room or at the level of your computer screen. These are actually things that people do in communities where high levels of visual focus are necessary.

当然，你应该知道通过尼古丁可以药理地增加乙酰胆碱的水平。然而，对于很多人来说，这样做存在一定的危险，而且也有经济成本。学习如何通过使用视觉系统来调动胆碱能系统。练习在需要休息的时候，能够专注多久。但是，你能在多长时间内专注地盯住一个目标，比如房间里离你几英尺远的纸片，或是电脑屏幕上某个位置。这些实际上是在那些需要高度视觉专注力的社区中人们常做的事情。

What we're really talking about here is trying to harness the mechanisms of attention and get better at paying attention. You may want to do that with your auditory system not with your visual system either because your low vision or no vision or because you're trying to learn something that relates more to sounds. You should also ask yourself whether or not you're trying to focus too much for too long during the day. I know some very high performing individuals very high performing in a variety of contexts and none of them are focused all day long. Many of them take walks down the hallway sometimes mumbling to themselves are not paying attention to anything else. They go for bike rides. They take walks. They are not trying to engage their mind at maximum focus all the time.

我们真正要讨论的是如何利用注意力机制，提升注意力的能力。你可能希望通过听觉系统提高注意力，而不是视觉系统，这可能是因为你的视力不好，或者完全没有视觉，又或者是因为你正在学习与声音相关的内容。你还需要问自己，白天你是否试图将注意力集中得太久。我认识一些在各种领域表现非常出色的人，他们并不是整天都保持高度专注。许多人走在走廊上，有时会自言自语，或者不去注意其他事情。他们会骑自行车，散步，他们并不是一直试图让自己保持最大程度的专注。

Very few people do that because we learn best in these 90 minute bouts inside of one of these all trading cycles and it I should repeat again that within that 90 minute cycle you should not expect yourself to focus for the entire period of one 90 minute cycle. The beginning and end are going to be a little bit flickering in and out of focus. How do you know when one of these 90 minute cycles is starting? Typically when you wake up is the beginning of the first 90 minute cycle but it does it's not down to the minute.

很少有人这样做，因为我们在90分钟的周期内学习效果最好。需要再强调一下，在这90分钟的周期内，你不应该期望自己能在整个90分钟内始终保持专注。在开始和结束时，注意力可能会有一些波动。你怎么知道一个90分钟周期何时开始呢？通常，当你醒来时，就是第一个90分钟周期的开始，但这并不精确到分钟。

You'll be able to tap into your sense of these 90 minute cycles as you start to engage in these learning practices should you choose. Then of course getting some non-sleep deep rest or just deliberate disengagement such as walking or running or just sitting eyes closed or eyes open kind of mindlessly it might seem in a chair just letting your thoughts move around after a learning about will accelerate the rate of plus. The rate of plasticity and then of course deep sleep many of you have very graciously asked how you can help support the human lab podcast best way to do that is to subscribe on YouTube might want to also hit the notification button so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes.

你可以在参与这些学习练习时，逐渐感受到每90分钟一个周期的节奏。当然，在学习之后，进行一些非睡眠的深度休息或者刻意的放松，比如散步、跑步，或者只是坐着发呆，让思绪自由流动，这些都可以加速大脑的塑造。深度睡眠同样重要。很多人问如何支持Human Lab播客，最好的方式是订阅其YouTube频道，并开启通知按钮，这样就不会错过任何新节目。

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