Researchers Confront an Epidemic of Loneliness
孤独是一种病，比肥胖更可怕
BLACKPOOL, England — The woman on the other end of the phone spoke lightheartedly of spring and her 81st birthday the previous week. “Who did you celebrate with, Beryl?” asked
Alison, whose job was to offer a kind ear.
英格兰布莱克浦——一位女士在电话里快活地聊着春暖花开，还有她上周刚度过的 81 岁
生日。“是谁和你一起庆生的，贝柔?”艾利森问道;她的工作就是当个耐心的听众。
“No one, I …” And with that, Beryl’s cheer turned to despair.
“没有人。我......”因为艾利森这句话，贝柔的情绪从快活转为低落。
Her voice began to quaver as she acknowledged that she had been alone at home not just on her birthday, but for days and days. The telephone conversation was the first time she had spoken in more than a week.
当贝柔承认自己不只生日那天独自在家，还有好一段时间都是如此，说话的声音开始颤抖。这通电话是她一个多星期以来首度与人交谈。
About 10,000 similar calls come in weekly to an unassuming office building in this seaside town at the northwest reaches of England, which houses The Silver Line Helpline, a 24-hour call
center for older adults seeking to fill a basic need: contact with other people.
在英格兰西北区的这个海滨小镇，每周都有大约 1 万通类似的电话打进此地一栋不起眼的办公大楼。它是 Silver Line 求助热线的所在地。这是一个为老人服务的 24 小时热线中心。这些老人家打电话来，是为了满足生活的某种基本需求：与他人保持联系。
Loneliness, which Emily Dickinson described as “the Horror not to be surveyed,” is a quiet devastation. But in Britain, it is increasingly being viewed as something more: a serious public health issue deserving of public funds and national attention.
诗人艾米莉·狄金森(Emily Dickinson)把孤独感描述为“不可丈量的恐怖”，那是一种悄无声息的伤害。不过在英国，人们逐渐认为，它的危害甚至更严重：它是应该被严肃对待的公共卫生课题，值得公共资金的投入和举国关注。
Working with local governments and the National Health Service, programs aimed at mitigating loneliness have sprung up in dozens of cities and towns. Even fire brigades have been trained to inspect homes not just for fire safety but for signs of social isolation.
与地方政府和国家医疗服务体系(National Health Service)合作、致力于减缓孤独现象的计划正在数十个城镇兴起。就连消防队也受了相关训练，除了查看民宅的防火安全，他们也要注意屋主是否有与世隔绝的迹象。
“There’s been an explosion of public awareness here, from local authorities to the Department
of Health to the media,” said Paul Cann, chief executive of Age UK Oxfordshire and a founder
of The Campaign to End Loneliness, a five-year-old group based in London. “Loneliness has tobe everybody’s business.”
“从地方当局、卫生署到媒体，各界对这件事的关注在迅速提高，”保罗‧ 坎恩(Paul Cann)
表示。他是老龄英国(Age UK)牛津郡分部的行政主管，也是有五年历史的伦敦“终结孤独”
倡议行动(The Campaign ot End Loneliness)的发起人。“每个人都该关心孤独这件事。”
Researchers have found mounting evidence linking loneliness to physical illness and to
functional and cognitive decline. As a predictor of early death, loneliness eclipses obesity. “The profound effects of loneliness on health and independence are a critical public health problem,” said Dr. Carla M. Perissinotto, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco. “It is no longer medically or ethically acceptable to ignore older adults who feel lonely and marginalized.”
学者已经发现，越来越多的证据显示，孤独与生理疾病还有行为与认知能力下降都有关联。孤独也比肥胖更可能预示人的早逝。“孤独对个人健康与自主生活能力的深刻影响，是很重要的公共卫生问题，”加州大学旧金山分校的老龄医学专家卡拉‧ M‧ 佩里西诺托(Dr.
Carla M. Perissinotto)说。“不论从医学或道德的眼光来看，我们都不能再忽略那些觉得自己孤单或不受重视的长者了。”
In Britain and the United States, roughly one in three people older than 65 live alone, and in the United States, half of those older than 85 live alone. Studies in both countries show theprevalence of loneliness among people older than 60 ranging from 10 percent to 46 percent.
在英国与美国，65 岁以上的民众大约每三人里就有一人独居，而美国年龄在 85 岁以上的人，有一半是独居。两国的研究都显示，60 岁以上者老境孤独的比例在 10%到 46%之间。
While the public, private and volunteer sectors in Britain are mobilizing to address loneliness, researchers are deepening their understanding of its biological underpinnings. In a paperpublished earlier this year in the journal Cell, neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology identified a region of the brain they believe generates feelings of loneliness. The region, known as the dorsal raphe nucleus, or DRN, is best known for its link to depression.
就在英国的公共部门、私人机构、义工团体都动员起来对付孤独的时候，研究人员也在更深入了解它的生物学基础。在今年稍早发表于《细胞》(Cell)期刊的一篇报告里，麻省理工学院(Massachusetts Institute of Techonology)的神经科学家认为他们找到了人脑产生孤独感的区域。这个叫做中缝背核(dorsal raphe nucleus, DRN)的部位最为人所知的是它和忧郁症的关联。
Kay M. Tye and her colleagues found that when mice were housed together, dopamine neurons in the DRN were relatively inactive. But after the mice were isolated for a short period, the activity in those neurons surged when those mice were reunited with other mice.
戴琦(Kay M. Tye)与她的同事发现，实验用小鼠住在一起的时候，鼠脑中缝背核里的多巴胺神经元比较不活跃。不过老鼠被隔离一小段时间再放回鼠群里的时候，这些神经元的活动会大幅增加。
“This is the first time we’ve found a cellular substrate for this experience,” said Tye, an assistant professor at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and a senior author of the paper. “And we saw the change after 24 hours of isolation.”
“这是我们第一次发现孤独感的细胞学根源，”戴博士说。她是麻省理工学院皮考尔学习和记忆研究所(Picower Institute for Learning and Memory)助理教授，也是该篇报告的主要作者。“在小鼠隔离了 24 小时之后，我们开始看到这种变化。”
John T. Cacioppo, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and director of the university’s Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, has been studying loneliness since the 1990s. He said loneliness is an aversive signal much like thirst, hunger or pain.
约翰·T·卡奇奥波(John T. Cacioppo)是芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)心理学教授，也是该校认知与社会神经科学中心(Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience)主任。他自 20
世纪 90 年代以来就一直在研究孤独感。他说，孤独感与口渴、饥饿、疼痛很相似，是一种反向讯号。
“Denying you feel lonely makes no more sense than denying you feel hunger,” he said. Yet the very word “lonely” carries a negative connotation, Cacioppo said, signaling social weakness, or an inability to stand on one’s own.
卡奇奥波表示：“拒绝承认自己的孤独感，就像拒绝承认自己饿了一样，没有意义。”不过他也说，“孤独”这个字本身有负面涵义，意味着一个人不善社交或无法自立更生。
The unspoken stigma of loneliness is amply evident during calls to The Silver Line. Most people call asking for advice on, say, roasting a turkey. Many call more than once a day. One woman rings every hour to ask the time. Only rarely will someone speak frankly about loneliness.
这种没有被言说的污名，从打给 Silver Line 的电话里很能看得出来。大部分去电寻求建议的人，问的都是，比方说，“怎么烤火鸡”这种问题;有些人一天会打上好几通。有位女性
每小时都会打这条专线问时间。只有极少数人会坦诚地讨论自己的孤单感受。
Yet the impulse to call in to services like The Silver Line is a healthy one, Cacioppo said.
不过卡奇奥波说，想给这类服务热线打电话的冲动是健康的。
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