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+--- Thread: Astronauts on Mars missions could suffer cognitive and emotional problems (/thread-9985.html)
Astronauts on Mars missions could suffer cognitive and emotional problems - C C - Mar 18, 2021
https://theconversation.com/astronauts-on-mars-missions-could-suffer-cognitive-and-emotional-problems-new-research-157259
EXCERPT: Deep space missions to Mars will be much more physically and mentally demanding than the journeys we’ve made so far [...] But a new study, published in Frontiers of Physiology, has discovered that the lack of gravity on such missions could have a negative impact on astronauts’ cognitive skills and emotional understanding.
Since the first space missions, it has been clear that exposure to “microgravity” (weightlessness) leads to dramatic changes in the human body. This includes alterations in the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and neural systems. On Earth, we detect gravity with the help of our vision and various organs, including those inside the inner ear. When our head is upright, small stones in the ears – the vestibular otoliths – are balanced perfectly on a viscous fluid. But when we move the head, gravity makes the fluid move and this triggers a signal to the brain that our head has changed position. In spaceflight, this process no longer works.
Spaceflight can even adversely alter the anatomy of astronauts’ brains. Structural brain changes have been observed in astronauts after returning from the International Space Station (ISS). These include the brain physically moving upwards inside the skull and a reduced connectivity between areas on the layer of the brain, the cortex, and those inside.
How these changes affect behaviour is not yet fully understood, but scientists are making progress. We know that astronauts can suffer from disorientation, perceptual illusions, balance disorders and motion sickness. But such findings are often based on small samples... (MORE - details)