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  3. William Shakespeare described old age as"second childishness"—no teeth, no eyes, no taste. In the case of taste he may, musicall

William Shakespeare described old age as"second childishness"—no teeth, no eyes, no taste. In the case of taste he may, musicall

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问题     William Shakespeare described old age as"second childishness"—no teeth, no eyes, no taste. In the case of taste he may, musically speaking, have been more perceptive than he realised. A paper in Neurology by Giovanni Frisoni and his colleagues at the National Centre for Research and Care of Alzheimers’s Disease in Italy, shows that frontotemporal dementia can affect musical desires in ways that suggest a regression,if not to infancy,then at least to a patient’s teens.
    Frontotemporal dementia, a disease usually found with old people, is caused, as its name suggests,by damage to the front and sides of the brain. These regions are concerned with speech, and with such" higher" functions as abstract thinking and judgment.
    Two of such patients intrigued Dr Frisoni. One was a 68-year-old lawyer, the other a 73-year-old housewife. Both had undamaged memories, but displayed the sorts of defect associated with frontotemporal dementia—a diagnosis that was confirmed by brain scanning.
    About two years after he was first diagnosed, the lawyer, once a classical music lover who re¬ferred to pop music as" mere noise" , started listening to the Italian pop band "883". As his com¬mand of language and his emotional attachments to friends and family deteriorated, he continued to listen to the band at full volume for many hours a day. The housewife had not even had the lawyer’s love of classical music, having never enjoyed music of any sort in the past. But about a year after her diagnosis she became very interested in the songs that her 11-year-old granddaughter was listen¬ing to.
    This kind of change in musical taste was not seen in any of the Alzheimer’s patients, and thus appears to be specific to those with frontotemporal dementia. And other studies have remarked on how frontotemporal-dementia patients sometimes gain new talents. Five sufferers who developed ar¬tistic abilities are known. And in another case, one woman with the disease suddenly started com¬posing and singing country and western songs.
    Dr Frisoni speculates that the illness is causing people to develop a new attitude towards novel experiences, Previous studies of novelty-seeking behaviour suggest that it is managed by the brain’s right frontal lobe. A predominance of the right over the left frontal lobe, caused by damage to the latter, might thus lead to a quest for new experience. Alternatively, the damage may have affected some specific nervous system that is needed to appreciate certain kinds of music. Whether that is a gain or a loss is a different matter. As Dr Frisoni puts it in his article, there is no accounting for taste.
Dr Frisoni attributed the patients’ changing music taste to
选项 A、man’s desire to seek novel experience.
B、the damage to the left part of the brain.
C、the shift of predominance from the right lobe to the left.
D、the weakening of some part of the nervous system.
答案D
解析 该题为细节题。该题可使用排除法。根据最后一段第三句和第四句“A predominance of the right over the left frontal lobe，caused by damage to the latter，might thus lead to a quest for new experience．Alternatively，the damage may have affected some specific nervous system that is needed to appreciate certain kinds of music．”可知由于左侧额叶的损伤，右侧额叶会占据主导地位，这样导致了病患对新体验的追求。或者，左侧额叶的损伤可能会影响到一些控制音乐品味的特定的神经系统。所以，作者将病患音乐品味的变化归结为左侧额叶受损所导致一些控制音乐品味的特定神经系统的损坏。选项A“人们追求新体验的渴望”并不是患者音乐品味的原因；选项B将原因归结为大脑左半边的损坏，与文章中所述左侧额叶受损不符；选项C将原因归结为占主导地位的由右侧额叶转为左侧额叶，与文中提到的因左侧额叶受损，而右侧额叶占主导地位不符，A、B、c三项均不符合文意，故选D。
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