巧克力还是芝士?科学揭秘人类到底更喜欢哪一个

When it comes to a choice between sweet or savoury, it's often a case of chocolate or cheese. And according to a US study, humans will choose carbohydrate-rich chocolate over cheese when the option is presented.

涉及甜还是咸的选择时，通常面临的都是巧克力还是芝士这道选择题。一项美国研究表示，当有物可选时，人类会选择碳水化合物丰富的巧克力，而非芝士。

Dana Small at the Yale University School of Medicinein New Haven, Connecticut, performed a study where volunteers were asked to put monetary bids on a variety of different foods. They found that the volunteers would place higher bids on things like cake, chocolate and sugary treats over savoury snacks like cheese.

康涅狄格州纽黑文耶鲁大学医学院的Dana Small开展了一项研究，要求志愿者对各种不同的食物进行金钱投标。他们发现，志愿者在蛋糕、巧克力和甜食等食物方面投标的金额要高于芝士等咸味零食。

 

Furthermore, the researchers carried out brain scans of the volunteers and found there was as urge of activity in the part of the brain involved with habits and rewards when they were choosing the sweet snacks like chocolate.

此外，研究员对这些志愿者的大脑进行了扫描，他们发现当志愿者选择巧克力等甜食时，他们涉及习惯和奖励的大脑区域活动激增。

"These results provide the first demonstration that foods high in fat and carbohydrate are, calorie for calorie, valued more than foods containing only fat or carbohydrate and that this effect is associated with greater recruitment of central reward circuits," explained the research team.

"这些结果首次证明了脂肪含量和碳水化合物含量高的食物比只含有脂肪或只含有碳水化合物的食物更受重视，这一效应与更多的中央奖励回路补充相关，"该研究团队解释道。

In a separate study, researchers from Columbia University discovered a way to removecravings for sugar in mice, and say that the technique could one day be applied to humans. The team performed several experiments in which the sweet or bitter connections to the amygdala were artificially switched off.

在另一项研究中，哥伦比亚大学的研究员发现了一种方法，可消除老鼠对糖的渴望。研究员称这种技术有一天可用于人类。该团队开展了多项研究，人为地关闭了扁桃体对甜味和苦味的感知。

When the sweet connections were turned off, the mice could still recognise and distinguish sweet from bitter, but lacked the basic emotional reactions, like preference for sugar oraversion to bitter. Dr Wang said: "It would be like taking a bite of your favourite chocolate cake but not deriving any enjoyment from doing so. After a few bites, you may stop eating, whereas otherwise you would have scarfed it down."

甜味感知被关闭时，老鼠仍能识别、辨别出甜味和苦味，但却丧失了基本的情绪反应，比如喜欢甜味、讨厌苦味。Wang医生说道："就像咬了一口你最爱的巧克力蛋糕，但却不会从中获得任何乐趣。吃了几口之后，你可能就不吃了，或者会狼吞虎咽的吃完。"

The researchers believe that the technique could one day be applied to humans, and could be used to treat people with obesity or eating disorders.

研究员认为这项技术有一天或将被用于人类，可用于治疗肥胖或饮食失调。