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  3. Childhood poverty and chronic stress may lead to problems regulating emotions as an adult, according to the research published o

Childhood poverty and chronic stress may lead to problems regulating emotions as an adult, according to the research published o

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问题     Childhood poverty and chronic stress may lead to problems regulating emotions as an adult, according to the research published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    "Our findings suggest that the stress-burden of growing up poor may be an underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between poverty as a child and how well the brain works as an adult," said Luan Phan, a professor of psychiatry (精神病学) at University of Illinois and also the senior author of the study.
    The researchers found that test subjects from lower-income families showed, as adults, greater activity in the amygdala (扁桃腺) , a brain area involved in fear and other negative emotions. These individuals showed low activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) , an area in the brain thought to regulate negative emotion. Amygdala and prefrontal cortex dysfunction (活动异常) has been associated with mood disorders including depression, anxiety, impulsive aggression and substance abuse, according to the authors.
    Phan said it is well known that the negative effects of poverty can set up "a cascade of increasing risk factors" for children to develop physical and psychological problems as an adult.
    But it has not been known how childhood poverty might affect brain function, particularly in emotional regulation. The ability to regulate negative emotions can provide protection against the physical and psychological health consequences of stress, he said.
    The study examined associations between childhood poverty at age 9, exposure to chronic stressors during childhood, and neural activity in areas of the brain involved in emotional regulation at age 24. Forty-nine participants took part.
    Data on family income, stressor exposures, physiological stress responses, socio-emotional development, and parent-child interactions were collected. About half the participants were from low-income families.
    Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers evaluated the participants’ brain activity as they performed an emotional-regulation task. Subjects were asked to try to suppress negative emotions while viewing pictures, using a cognitive coping strategy.
    "This serves as a brain-behavioral index of a person’s day-to-day ability to cope with stress and negative emotions as they encounter them," Phan said.
    Perhaps the most important finding, Phan added, was that the amount of chronic stress from childhood through adolescence—such as substandard housing, crowding, noise, and social stressors like family turmoil, violence or family separation—determined the relationship between childhood poverty and prefrontal brain function during emotional regulation.
What does Phan mean by saying "a cascade of increasing risk factors" (Line 1, Para. 4)?
选项 A、The risk factors will increase at a large scale.
B、The risk factors will become a cascade.
C、The risk factors will increase because of cascade.
D、The risk factors will decrease because of cascade.
答案A
解析 语义题。根据题干中的a cascade of increasing risk facto~定位到原文第四段。本题的关键是理解cascade一词，根据做题经验，语义理解题可以从前后内容找答案。前文提到在贫困条件下成长的儿童成年后大脑功能会受影响，而该句说的是儿童在贫困条件下成长会产生生理和心理问题，故可推测，引号中部分的意思是“风险大大增加”，故选A。
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