During space missions, astronauts they must perform complex taskswith much concentrationsince even minor mistakes can have devastating consequences.
But astronauts are also exposed to environmental stressors, such as radiation, altered gravity, isolation and confinement, schedule alterations, among others, that can compromise their cognitive performance.
Recently, the largest study to date was conducted on how six-month missions aboard the International Space Station (ISS) They face cognitive challenges due to environmental factors of space flight. He job was published by scientists from the NASA in Frontiers in Physiology.
A stay in space puts extreme pressures on the human body. Astronauts’ bodies and brains are affected by radiation, altered gravity, difficult working conditions, and loss of sleep.
In the past, there have been subjective reports and anecdotes indicating that astronauts may experience cognitive difficulties during missions, especially on tasks that require sustained attention and processing speed.
There have also been early studies conducted on short-duration space shuttle missions that suggested attention may be affected.
Meanwhile, work on long-duration missions on the International Space Station (ISS) has found that astronauts who slept less than five hours showed worse performance in sustained attention tasks.
Now, agency investigators NASA examined changes in a wide range of domains of cognitive performance of 25 astronauts who spent an average of six months on the ISS. They provided the largest sample of data on cognitive performance of professional astronauts published to date.
“We show that there is no evidence of significant cognitive impairment or neurodegenerative decline in the astronauts who spent six months on the ISS,” the doctor stated Sheena Devresearcher at the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory NASA and first author of the study Frontiers in Physiology.
“Living and working in space was not associated with widespread cognitive impairment that would suggest significant brain damage,” he noted.
“The studio is very well designed. They use cognitive tests with multiple versions to control for learning effects and also control for them statistically in a reasonable way. However, if we take a closer look, we can say that the chosen evaluation times (once before the mission, twice during the mission and twice after the mission) are insufficient. Because They are too short to rule out possible cognitive deterioration, which could appear later. Therefore, it would be interesting to suggest a medium and long-term follow-up of this same cohort of participants,” he told Infobae Lucía Crivelli, head of neuropsychology at Fleni and researcher at Conicet, in Argentina.
The astronauts participated in a series of tests designed to evaluate different cognitive domains through 10 subtests. For each of these tests, the researchers measured the speed and the precision at five key moments: before the mission, in the initial and final phases of the flight, and at 10 and 30 days after landing.
The results indicated that the responses in tasks related to processing speedthe working memory and the attention They were slower than on Earth, but no less precise. However, those changes did not continue uniformly.
He slower performance in attention It was only observed at the beginning of the mission. The processing speed it did not return to baseline levels until after the end of the mission and return to Earth.
According to the doctor Devthe overall results showed that the astronauts’ cognitive performance was stable, and no evidence of damage to the central nervous system was found during a six-month space mission.
The study identified that some cognitive domains are more susceptible to being affected than others. Processing speed, working memory y attention They are domains vulnerable to stress, both on Earth and in space.
On the other hand, domains such as long term memory They are less sensitive to stressors. The scientific He explained that these changes are similar to those observed on Earth when a person has a very busy day and sleeps little, making it difficult to pay attention or complete tasks quickly.
“We found that the most vulnerable domains while astronauts are in the ISS “They are the same ones that are most susceptible to stress on Earth,” he commented. Dev.
The researchers acknowledged that the study did not determine why these changes occur or evaluate whether the astronauts’ operational performance was affected. Dev suggested that, even in cases with observed declines, The astronauts could have compensated effectively to complete their tasks.
For longer missions, such as those aimed at Luna o Martedata obtained in low Earth orbit can serve as a reference to quickly identify cognitive changes related to increased radiation exposure and increased communication delays. This information will be key to designing strategies that maintain optimal cognitive performance in more demanding missions.
