12. If you want to stay young,sit down and have a good think.This is the research finding of a team of Japanese doctors,who say that most of our brains are not getting enough exercise and,as a result,we are growing old unnecessarily soon.
Professor Taiju Matsuzawa wanted to find out why quite healthy farmers in northern Japan appeared to be losing their ability to think and reason at a rather early age,and how the speed of getting old could be slowed down.
With a team of researchers at Tokyo National University,he set about measuring brain volumes (腦量) of a thousand people of different ages with different jobs.Computer technology helped the researchers to get most exact measurements of the volume of the front and side parts of the brain,which have something to do with intellect and feelings,and decide the human character.As we all know,the back part of the brain,which controls the tasks like eating and breathing,does not contract(萎縮)with age.
Contraction of front and side parts - as cells die off-was seen in some people in their thirties,but it was still not found in some sixty and seventy-year-olds.
Matsuzawa concluded from his tests that there is a simple way to prevent the contraction ---using the head.
The findings show that contraction of the brain begins sooner in people in the country than in the towns. "Those with least possibility," says Matsuzawa, "are lawyers,followed by university professors and doctors.White collar workers doing the same work day after day in government offices are,however,as possible to have contracting brains as the farm workers,bus drivers and shop assistants."
(1)What is paragraph 3 mainly about?
A.The measurements of brain volumes.
B.the reason of brain contraction.
C.The result of researches.
D.the team of researchers.
(2)What can we do to prevent the contraction?
A.Using the head.
B.doing an operation.
C.Measuring brain volumes.
D.working as a farmer.
(3)What is the function of the front and side parts of the brain?
A.Controls intellect and feelings.
B.Controls eating and breathing.
C.Controls hearing.
D.Controls listening.
(4)The researchers' tests show that?
A.our brains contract as we grow older.
B.one part of the brain does not contract.
C.sixty-year-olds have better brains than thirty-year-olds.
D.some people's brains have contracted earlier than other people's.