When Steve Cole was a postdoc, he had an unusual hobby: matching art buyers with artists that they might like. The task made looking at art, something he had always loved, even more enjoyable. “There was an extra layer of pupose. I loved the ability to help artists I thought were great to find an appreciative audience," he says.
At the time, it was nothing more than a quirky sideline. But his latest findings have caused Cole - now a professor at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at the University of California, Los Angeles一to wonder whether the exhilaration and sense of purpose that he felt during that period might have done more than help him to find homes for unloved pieces of art. It might have benefited his immune system too.
At one time, most self- respecting molecular biologists would have scoffed at the idea. Today, evidence from many studies suggests that mental states such as stress can influence heath, Still, it has proved difficult to explain how this happens at the molecular level 一how subjective moods connect with the vastly complex physiology of the nervous and immune systems. The field that searches for these explanations, known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), is often criticized as lacking rigour. Cole's stated aim is to fix that, and his tool of choice is genome-wide transcriptional analysis; looking at broad patterms of gene expression in cells. "My job is to be a hard-core tracker," he says.“How do these mental states get out into the rest of the body?"
With his colleagues, Cole has published a string of studies suggesting that negative mental states such as stress and loneliness guide immune tesponses by driving broad programs of gene expression, shaping our ability to fight disease. If he is right, the way people see the world could affct everything from their risk of chronic ilnesses such as diabetes and heart diseaso to the progression of conditions such as HIV and cancer. Now Cole has switched tack, moving from negative moods into the even more murky territory of happiness. It is a risky strategy; his work has already been criticized as wishful thinking and moralizing. But the pay-off is nothing less than finding a healthier way to live.
“If you tlk to any high-quality neurobiologist or immunologist about PNI, it will invariably generate a little snicker," says Stephen Smale, an immunologist at the University of Califormia, Los Angeles, who is not afiliated with the Cousins Center.“But this doesn't mean the topic should be ignored forever, Someday we need to confront it and try to understand how the immune system and nervous system interact."
With which of the following subjects is the passage mainly concerned?
A.Defining PNI B.Cole's studies in PNI C.Cole's umusual hobby D.How to find a healthier way to live正确答案B
