#大學英語聽力#
People getting treated for depression often have to suffer through months of trial-and-error testing of different drugs to see which of them—if any—will help.
接受抑鬱症治療的人經常不得不經歷幾個月的反覆試驗不同的藥物，看看哪種藥物-如果有的話-會有幫助。
For a long time, scientists and clinicians have hoped for a biological means of diagnosing depression or predicting which patients will do better on a given treatment.
很長一段時間以來，科學家和臨床醫生一直希望有一種生物學方法來診斷抑鬱症或預測哪些患者在給定的治療中會表現得更好。
A new study takes a step toward the latter kind of prediction by finding a distinctive signature with the noninvasive technique of electroencephalography(EEG) to test who will benefit from one common antidepressant.
一項新的研究向後一種預測邁出了一步，通過使用腦電圖(EEG)的非侵入性技術找到獨特的特徵來測試誰將從一種常見的抗抑鬱藥物中受益。
The study, published Monday in Nature Biotechnology, followed more than 300 people with depression as they began taking the drug sertraline (Zoloft) or a placebo.
這項周一發表在「自然生物技術」上的研究跟蹤了300多名抑鬱症患者，因為他們開始服用藥物舍曲林(Zoloft)或安慰劑。
A computer algorithm could discern the EEGs of those who fared well on the drug from those who did not.
一種計算機算法可以區分那些在藥物治療上表現良好的人的腦電圖，以及那些沒有用藥的人的腦電圖。
Trained on one group, the algorithm also effectively predicted results in several others.
在一個組上訓練，該算法也有效地預測了其他幾個組的結果。
The work is preliminary and needs to be confirmed with further studies and expanded to include other treatments, such as different antidepressants, transcranial magnetic stimulation and psychotherapy.
這項工作是初步的，需要進一步的研究證實，並擴大到包括其他治療，如不同的抗抑鬱藥物，經顱磁刺激和心理治療。
But 「in my field, this, itself, is a huge step. We have not had the kind of predictors that are specific for a drug,」 says Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Peter O』Donnell Jr.
但是「在我的領域，這本身就是一個巨大的進步。我們還沒有特定於藥物的預測因子，「德州大學西南醫學中心的精神病學家Madhukar Trivedi說。
Brain Institute, who oversaw the multisite trial.
大腦研究所，他監督了多站點試驗。
Right now doctors give patients whichever antidepressant they like best, and then—for all choices in this class of drugs—they have to wait six to eight weeks to know whether it is working or not, says Amit Etkin, who also oversaw the research.
這項研究的負責人阿米特·埃特金(Amit Etkin)說，現在醫生給病人最喜歡的抗抑鬱劑，然後-對於這類藥物中的所有選擇-他們必須等六到八周才能知道它是否有效。
If the drug does not work well, it might be another six weeks before they know whether a different dose or a new drug is more effective.
如果藥物效果不好，可能需要再過六個星期，他們才會知道不同劑量的藥物或新藥是否更有效。