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Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry

Fifty years after the first humans stepped on the Moon, space faring nations have entered a new era of space exploration. NASA’s reference mission to Mars is expected to comprise 1100 days. Deep space exploratory class missions could even span decades. They will be the most challenging and dangerous...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Stahn, Alexander C., Kühn, Simone
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34409546
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01050-5
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author Stahn, Alexander C.
Kühn, Simone
author_facet Stahn, Alexander C.
Kühn, Simone
author_sort Stahn, Alexander C.
collection PubMed
description Fifty years after the first humans stepped on the Moon, space faring nations have entered a new era of space exploration. NASA’s reference mission to Mars is expected to comprise 1100 days. Deep space exploratory class missions could even span decades. They will be the most challenging and dangerous expeditions in the history of human spaceflight and will expose crew members to unprecedented health and performance risks. The development of adverse cognitive or behavioral conditions and psychiatric disorders during those missions is considered a critical and unmitigated risk factor. Here, we argue that spatial cognition, i.e., the ability to encode representations about self-to-object relations and integrate this information into a spatial map of the environment, and their neural bases will be highly vulnerable during those expeditions. Empirical evidence from animal studies shows that social isolation, immobilization, and altered gravity can have profound effects on brain plasticity associated with spatial navigation. We provide examples from historic spaceflight missions, spaceflight analogs, and extreme environments suggesting that spatial cognition and its neural circuitry could be impaired during long-duration spaceflight, and identify recommendations and future steps to mitigate these risks.
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spelling pubmed-84236992021-09-09 Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry Stahn, Alexander C. Kühn, Simone Cogn Process Key Note Paper Fifty years after the first humans stepped on the Moon, space faring nations have entered a new era of space exploration. NASA’s reference mission to Mars is expected to comprise 1100 days. Deep space exploratory class missions could even span decades. They will be the most challenging and dangerous expeditions in the history of human spaceflight and will expose crew members to unprecedented health and performance risks. The development of adverse cognitive or behavioral conditions and psychiatric disorders during those missions is considered a critical and unmitigated risk factor. Here, we argue that spatial cognition, i.e., the ability to encode representations about self-to-object relations and integrate this information into a spatial map of the environment, and their neural bases will be highly vulnerable during those expeditions. Empirical evidence from animal studies shows that social isolation, immobilization, and altered gravity can have profound effects on brain plasticity associated with spatial navigation. We provide examples from historic spaceflight missions, spaceflight analogs, and extreme environments suggesting that spatial cognition and its neural circuitry could be impaired during long-duration spaceflight, and identify recommendations and future steps to mitigate these risks. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-08-18 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8423699/ /pubmed/34409546 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01050-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Key Note Paper
Stahn, Alexander C.
Kühn, Simone
Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry
title Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry
title_full Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry
title_fullStr Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry
title_full_unstemmed Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry
title_short Brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry
title_sort brains in space: the importance of understanding the impact of long-duration spaceflight on spatial cognition and its neural circuitry
topic Key Note Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8423699/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34409546
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-021-01050-5
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