It has long been known that prolonged stay in space affects the human body. According to NASA observations, astronauts returning from the ISS often complain of visual impairments and headaches. But now scientists have found that the changes in the brain persist after returning to Earth. Do these changes affect thinking ability? There is no clarity yet, writes "Welt".
The fact that a long stay in space is reflected in the body of astronauts has long been known. But now scientists have discovered that they have changes in the brain that persist after returning to Earth.
It is believed that humanity has a plan B: if people can no longer live on Earth, they will go into space to distant worlds. Best of all on Mars - it is relatively close and looks more or less attractive.
There are, of course, a couple of problems to be solved before Plan B is actually implemented. Scientists are working hard to overcome them. But recently, bad news came from Munich: scientists at the Ludwig and Maximilian University, who studied the reaction of the human brain to a long stay in space, found that noticeable changes take place in it, which, moreover, persist for a long period after the return of astronauts to Earth.
Unfortunately, even six months after returning from long space flights, "extensive volume changes" are noted in the brains of astronauts. According to scientists, there are signs that these problems are exacerbated by the length of time a person has been in space.
Even almost seven months after the astronauts returned to Earth, scientists recorded a decrease in the volume of the so-called gray matter in their brains. It is a part of the brain that is made up mostly of nerve cells. Within six months after landing, this effect somewhat weakened, but did not disappear completely.
In addition, when scanning the brain, it was found that the space filled with cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, on the contrary, expanded. Changes were also found in the white matter, that is, in a part of the brain tissue, consisting mainly of nerve fibers. Immediately after landing, the volume of white matter at first remained the same, but after six months it was noted to be a decrease in comparison with the results of previous surveys.
Whether these changes affect the thinking abilities of astronauts is not yet clear to scientists. Now they have been able to establish only changes in vision, which, as scientists assume, may occur due to the pressure of the increased cerebrospinal fluid on the retina and optic nerve. It is possible that such changes are caused by weightlessness.
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Munich physician Peter zu Eulenburg, along with scientists from Belgium and Russia, examined ten Russian cosmonauts between 2014 and 2018, each of whom spent an average of 189 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
Before launch and after returning to Earth, their brains were scanned, and the brains of the seven astronauts were scanned again after about seven months. The survey results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“We were the first to be able to examine changes in the brain quite a long time after landing,” said Oilenburg. In his opinion, in order to minimize the risks of long-term flights, it is absolutely necessary to conduct additional and long-term research.
The fact that prolonged stay in space can lead to changes in the structure of the brain of astronauts has already been established in the course of research carried out last year by the US Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA with the participation of the Frankfurt University Hospital.
According to NASA observations, astronauts who returned from the ISS often complained of visual impairments and headaches. Scientists have found that they have a narrowing of the central groove of the brain, in addition, in all astronauts, the brain has moved upward.
Britta Schultejans