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  3. The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants sle

The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants sle

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问题     The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants slept less deeply and for shorter periods during the full moon than at other lunar phases. It is a phenomenon already known in other organisms as the "circalunar rhythm", but has never before been shown in humans.
    The brain pattern, eye movements and hormone secretion of volunteers were studied while they slept. Participants were also asked for subjective assessments of their sleep quality. The results, published in Current Biology , showed that around the full moon, subjects’ brain activity associated with deep sleep decreased by 30%. They took 5 minutes longer to fall asleep, had 20 minutes less sleep overall and lower levels of melatonin—a hormone known to regulate sleep. These findings correlated with the volunteers’ own perception that sleep quality was poorer during the full moon.
    Previous research has found no association between the phases of the moon and human physiology or behaviour. "I think one issue in the past was that they compared a lot of people by mixing different laboratories, different devices, and including data from patients, so the entire thing was not standardised," Cajochen said. "The advantage here is that we really had a standardised protocol. " The data was taken from a previous study that was not originally looking at the moon’ s influence. Participants were kept in a very controlled environment, with artificial lighting, regulated temperature and no way of checking the time. This ensured that internal body rhythms could be investigated independently of external influences.
    "The only disadvantage with such a standardised procedure is that we could only investigate 33 people," said Cajochen. "What I would like to do in the future is to increase the number of subjects and then to follow up each person through the entire moon cycle. " But such a study would have problems of its own, he added. "If you’re actually going to tell people you’re investigating the influence of the moon, then you may trigger some expectation or sensitivity in them. Sleep is also a psychological thing, of course. "
    If true, the mechanisms responsible for the phenomenon are unknown. Malcolm von Schantz, a molecular neurobiologist at Surrey University, said: "Essentially it could be either two things: the moon itself has a gravitational pull which somehow affects our physiology. I find that very unlikely as the gravitational pull of the moon is fairly weak. It doesn’t cause tides in lakes for example, only in large oceans. In fact, if you’re sitting within 15 inches of the wall right now then the wall has a stronger gravitational pull on you than the moon does. So I don’t think we have a sort of mini-tide in ourselves. "
    "The alternative is that there is a ’counter’, a mechanism which keeps track somehow of the phases of the moon. " Marine animals are already known to follow a circalunar rhythm and some believe it is tightly intertwined with the circadian rhythm—the other internal clock that many organisms, humans included, have which is entrained to the sun. Other researchers have wondered why a human circalunar clock should exist in the first place. Michael Hastings, a neuroscientist studying circadian rhythms at Cambridge University, said: "In evolutionary terms, it sounds plausible to me at least. " If you were a hunter gatherer, you’d want to be out there on a full moon, not a new moon. It might be that there’s something about suppression of sleep under those circumstances because you should be out hunting.
Researchers did not study______while participants slept.
选项 A、the brain pattern
B、eye movements
C、hormone secretion
D、blood pressure
答案D
解析 本题考查考生对第二段有关该研究所采取的研究对象以及研究方法的理解。在第二段第一句明确指出“当自愿者入睡以后，研究人员对他们的大脑活动模式、眼球的运动，以及激素的分泌进行了观察。参与者还被要求对他们的睡眠质量进行主观评定”，可见，[A]、[B]、[C]都属于研究内容，只有[D]，文中对“血压”状况根本没有提及，而本题属于“选非”题型，因此[D]是正确答案。
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