新版GMAT阅读考试复习资料.pdf

GMAT GMAT GGMMAATT 阅读讲义 GMAT GMAT GGMMAATT 核心阅读 Passage1 Passage1 PPaassssaaggee11 Caffeine,the stimulant in coffee, has beencalled “the most widely used psychoactive substanceonEarth .” Synder,Daly andBruns have recentlyproposed that caffeine affects behavior bycountering the activity in (5) (5) ((55)) thehuman brain of anaturally occurring chemical called adenosine. Adenosine normally depressesneuron firing inmany areas ofthe brain. It apparently doesthis by inhibiting the releaseofneurotransmitters, chemicals that carry nerveimpulses from oneneuron tothe next. (10) (10) ((1100)) Like manyother agents that affect neuronfiring, adenosine must first bindto specific receptors on neuronal membranes. There are atleast twoclasses ofthese receptors, which havebeendesignated A1and A2. Snyder etal propose that caffeine,whichis struc- (15) (15) ((1155)) turally similar toadenosine, is able tobindto bothtypes ofreceptors, whichprevents adenosine from attaching there andallows theneurons tofire more readily than they otherwise would. Formany years,caffeine’s effects havebeen attri- (20) (20) ((2200)) butedto its inhibition ofthe productionofphosphodi- esterase, an enzyme that breaks down thechemical calledcyclic AMP.A numberof neurotransmitters exert their effects by first increasing cyclic AMPconcentra- tions in target neurons. Therefore, prolonged periods at (25) (25) ((2255)) theelevatedconcentrations, asmight be brought about byaphosphodiesteraseinhibitor,could lead toagreater amount ofneuron firing and,consequently, tobehav- ioral stimulation.But Snyder etal point out that the caffeine concentrations neededto inhibit the production (30) (30) ((3300)) of phosphodiesterasein thebrain are muchhigher