介绍了建立高阶引力理论(该理论用以修正爱因斯坦广义相对论)的物理背景， 并讨论了暗物质问题。对几种主要高阶引力理论及其解作了评述，并尝试在不必 假定暗物质存在的情况下，用高阶引力理论解决有关星系旋转曲线的困难。但令 人遗憾的是，至今还没有一个理论取得完全的成功。指出了解决这一问题面临的 困难，并建议寻找新的高阶引力理论。
In this paper, the physical background of establishing the higher order gravitational theory for correcting Einstein's general relativity, especially for the dark matter problem, is discussed. The main higher--order gravitational theoies and their solutions are reviewed. Some attempts of resolving the difficulty on the rotation curve of galaxy without the dark matter in the light of higher--order gravitational theory have been made. But up to now, none of them is successful. We point out the difficulty in solving the problem and the necessity of a new kind of higher-order gravitational theory.