看了今年第二期<户外>杂志的<高原在吞噬你的大脑吗>, 觉得是一篇非常好的文章, 值得每一个喜爱高山攀登的人参考, 在网上搜了一下, 没有发现有现成的, 只好找了同作者的另一篇文章, 略作翻译, 本人不是学医的, 也不敢爬雪山, 错误之处在所难免, 还望方家指正
如果攀登高海拔要付出大脑永久性损伤,智力下降的代价, 我以为是值得三思而后行的, 如果不是靠这个吃饭, 没有人愿意为了看几眼风景就变得愚笨吧, 也许会有人说大脑潜力无穷, 死点脑细胞没啥, 其实EQ更重要, 原子弹不如茶叶蛋blar blar blar, 祝你好运
至于刻意的无氧登高山, 通常被看作是英雄, 看了这篇文章, 不知道你是不是还会持有同样的看法
如果实在执著于对雪山环境的热爱, 我想有两个办法: 冬季攀登较低海拔的山, 去高纬度登山, 这样都可以在4000米以下体验冰雪岩环境而没有太多缺氧的风险
原载于科学美国人2008年4月号
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brain-cells-into-thin-air&print=true
Into Thin Air: Mountain Climbing Kills Brain Cells
The neural cost of high-altitude mountaineering
By R. Douglas Fields
Three attributes of a good mountaineer are high pain threshold, bad memory, and ... I forget the third. —Joke in a mountaineering Internet chat room
好的登山家有三个特征: 高痛苦耐受力, 坏记性, 还有..我想不起第三个了
---某互联网上登山运动聊天室里的笑话
In the late 1890s in a laboratory atop a 4,554-meter peak in the Monta Rosa range in the Italian Alps, physiologist Angelo Mosso made the first direct observations of the effects of high altitude on the human brain: by eye and with an apparatus he designed, Mosso peeked into the skull of a man whose brain had been partly exposed in an accident, observing changes in swelling and pulsation.
Now a similar experiment has been done with noninvasive brain imaging, and for those of us who love to climb the results are not elevating. Neurologist Nicolás Fayed and his colleagues in Zaragoza, Spain, performed MRI brain scans on 35 climbers (12 professionals and 23 amateurs) who had returned from high-altitude expeditions, including 13 who had attempted Everest. They found brain damage in virtually every Everest climber but also in many climbers of lesser peaks who returned unaware that they had injured their brain. It seems that climbers of high mountains, whether weekend warrior or seasoned professional, face returning from the high peaks with a brain that is not in the same condition it was in beforehand.
西班牙的神经学专家Nicolás Fayed给35名登山者作了脑部核磁共振扫描, 12名职业登山者, 23名业余, 其中13人尝试过珠峰. 他们发现, 不但13名珠峰攀登者几乎都有大脑损伤, 很多没爬那么多的也有
What Gives in a Climber’s Brain?
Although a person’s tolerance to hypoxia (lack of oxygen) varies according to differences in innate physiology and physical conditioning, no one is immune. Those effects can be acute, affecting you only while you are at altitude, or—as the Fayed study found—they can be longer-lasting.
没有人能对缺氧免疫
The first acute stage is called, naturally enough, acute mountain sickness. It can cause headache, insomnia, dizziness, fatigue, nausea and vomiting. The next, more serious stage is high- altitude cerebral edema, also known as HACE, brain swelling that is potentially fatal.
Lack of oxygen can directly damage brain cells. In addition, the walls of blood capillaries begin to leak at high altitudes, and the leaked fluid can cause dangerous swelling, pressing the brain outward against the rigid skull. Sometimes the optic nerves swell so badly they bulge into the back of the eye, degrading vision and causing retinal hemorrhages. Meanwhile blood, concentrated from dehydration and thickened by increased numbers of red blood cells, clots more easily. This clotting, along with the hemorrhage from the thinned capillaries, can cause a stroke. A climber with HACE may experience amnesia, confusion, delusions, emotional disturbance, personality changes and loss of consciousness.
Severe cases of acute high-altitude disease have long been known to cause brain damage. But one of the sobering things about the Fayed study is that even when climbers showed no signs of acute sickness, the scans still found brain damage.
即使没有严重高反症状, 扫描仍能发现脑部受损
The results in the Everest climbers were the starkest. Of the 13 climbers, three had made the 8,848-meter summit, three had reached 8,100 meters, and seven had topped out between 6,500 and 7,500 meters. The expedition had no major mishaps, and none of the 12 professional climbers evinced any obvious signs of high-altitude illness; the only acute case of mountain sickness was a mild one in the expedition’s amateur climber. Yet only one of the 13 climbers (a professional) returned with a normal brain scan. All the scans of the other 12 showed cortical atrophy or enlargement of the Virchow-Robin (VR) spaces. These spaces surround the blood vessels that drain brain fluid and communicate with the lymph system; widening of these VR spaces is seen in the elderly but rarely in the young. The amateur climber’s brain had also suffered subcortical lesions in the frontal lobes.
13个攀登珠峰的登山者中, 只有一个业余登山者有严重高反, 另外12个专业登山者没有明显高山病的迹象, 但仅有一人脑部扫描正常, 12个人脑皮层萎缩或是脑血管间隙扩大(VR space, 健康年轻人不应该有)
How High Is Too High?
Of course, Everest is extreme. Fayed and his colleagues also studied an eight-person team that attempted Aconcagua, a 6,962-meter summit in the Argentine Andes. Two climbers reached the summit, five climbed to between 6,000 and 6,400 meters, and one reached 5,500 meters. Yet three members experienced acute mountain sickness, and two displayed symptoms of brain edema—probably because they ascended more rapidly from lower altitudes than the Everest climbers did.
All eight Aconcagua climbers showed cortical atrophy on MRI scans. Seven showed enlarged VR spaces, and four showed numerous subcortical lesions. Some needed no scan to tell them their brains had been injured. One climber suffered aphasia (problems with speech), from which he recovered six months later. Two complained of transient memory loss after returning, and three others struggled with bradypsychia (slowed mental function).
所有八名阿空加瓜山(6962)的攀登者在核磁共振扫描中都显示出大脑皮层萎缩, 其中七人VR间隙膨胀, 4个人大脑皮质下损伤
The body is remarkably resilient: Does the brain recover from these mountaineering wounds? To answer this question, the researchers reexamined the same climbers three years after the expedition, with no other high-altitude climbing intervening. In all cases, the damage was still apparent on the second set of scans.
大脑是否能从高山伤害中恢复? 研究人员在这次远征三年后重新检查了这些攀登者的脑部(他们此间没有再从事高海拔攀登), 损害仍然明显
Still, Aconcagua is one of the world’s highest mountains. Mont Blanc in the western Alps is less extreme. Its 4,810-meter summit is climbed every year by thousands of mountaineers who probably do not expect injury to their “second favorite organ,” to use Woody Allen’s nomenclature for the brain. Yet the researchers found that of seven climbers who reached Mont Blanc’s summit, two returned with enlarged VR spaces.
阿空加瓜山是世界最高山峰之一, 勃朗峰则不那么极端, ...研究者们发现, 七名登上4810米海拔勃朗峰的攀登者, 2个人VR间隙膨胀
Because Why?
The study suggests that chronic exposure to high altitudes is not required to experience irreversible brain damage. In fact, amateurs seem to be at greater risk, because they are more likely to suffer acute mountain sickness or high-altitude cerebral edema. At the same time, the experience required to become well acclimated seems to take an ever increasing cumulative toll; compared with the amateurs, professional climbers in this study had greater cortical atrophy overall. They felt stronger but showed more brain damage.
和业余登山者相比, 专业登山者总的说来, 大脑皮层萎缩更严重. 他们感觉更强壮但显示出更严重的大脑损伤
Mountain climbing is growing in popularity—and with good reason. It can provide experiences of a lifetime; a communion with nature and with friends that feeds the soul; intense and enduring rewards surpassing those found within the bounds of routine; and adventure and challenge that build courage, stamina and fortitude. It also gets you into incomparable mountain wilderness—although that is vanishing. Many sense that the singular “it” residing in George Mallory’s pithy raison d’ascent—“Because it’s there!”—may soon be gone.
Some 5,000 climbers ascend Himalayan peaks every year. Thousands more climb peaks in the Alps and Andes. Many of these people spend liberally to mount expeditions or to be guided to the summit. But it is increasingly clear that these climbers are paying for the privilege with something more than hard-earned cash. They’re paying with brain tissue.
每年有约5000人攀上喜马拉雅山的群峰, 爬上阿尔卑斯山和安第斯山的还要多好几千. ...越来越明显, 这些攀登者正在为这份荣耀付出一些比血汗钱更重要的东西: 他们的大脑