Astronaut Behavioral Health
During spaceflight, astronauts face a unique set of conditions, including microgravity, isolation, and confinement, as well as environmental and operational hazards. These factors can negatively impact sleep, alertness, and neurobehavioral performance, all of which are critical to mission success. As humanity seeks to venture further into space and for longer durations, our research seeks to understand the implications of the increased exposure to the stressors involved with such high-risk endeavors.
Our lab has shown that while individual differences exist in how astronauts respond to space stressors, sleep deficiency during spaceflight is associated with degraded neurobehavioral functions and elevated stress levels in astronauts on six-month ISS missions, and that brain structure changes occur during extended isolation (in space and in space-like analogs), with gray matter declining in certain regions during missions but largely recovering post-mission. In addition to understanding how to mitigate the physical and medical risks of space travel, understanding the psychological toll of time in space, including tests to resilience, chronic stress and the effects of loneliness, will be critical to operational success.
Dr. Basner developed, together with his colleagues Dr. David F. Dinges and Dr. Ruben C. Gur and with collaborators from Pulsar Informatics Inc., the Cognition test battery for spaceflight. This development was funded by both NASA and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). Cognition consists of 10 brief, validated cognitive tests that cover a range of cognitive domains. The tests were specifically designed for the high-performing Astronaut population. Brain regions primarily recruited by the individual test have been established with fMRI. The Cognition battery is part of NASA’s Behavioral Health and Performance Standard Measures, a set of measures that is routinely performed by all astronauts on ISS missions and by research subjects in space analog environments. In 2018, Dr. Basner was awarded the International Space Station Innovation Award for Cognition by the American Astronautical Society. In 2016, the original paper describing Cognition received the Journal Publication Award for the Most Outstanding Space Medicine Article published in the Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance Journal by the Space Medicine Association.
Read more here: Development and Validation of the Cognition Test Battery for Spaceflight
Cognitive Performance in Spaceflight
Individualized Real-Time Neurocognitive Assessment Toolkit for Space Flight Fatigue
During spaceflight, astronauts face a unique set of stressors, including microgravity, isolation, and confinement, as well as environmental and operational hazards. These factors can negatively impact sleep, alertness, and neurobehavioral performance, all of which are critical to mission success. We have successfully used the 3-minute PVT-B, a condensed, 3-minute version of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test that remains highly sensitive to the effects of sleep deprivation. to predict neurobehavioral performance over the course of a 6-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), using ISS environmental data as well as self-reported and cognitive data collected longitudinally from 24 astronauts.
Read more here: Dynamic ensemble prediction of cognitive performance in spaceflight
Sleep deficiency in spaceflight is associated with degraded neurobehavioral functions and elevated stress in astronauts on six-month missions aboard the International Space Station
Reaction Self Test on ISS
PVT measures astronaut’s behavioral alertness while on the ISS
As the feasibility of private space travel advances, we seek to understand the effects of spaceflight on commercial and civilian crews, as it can inform a broader understanding into risks and potential countermeasures, instead of relying solely on data collected on an astronaut population that has trained and prepared for years pre-flight. In 2021, the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission launched the first all-civilian crew to low Earth orbit, which included the youngest American astronaut (aged 29), new in-flight experimental technologies (handheld ultrasound imaging, smartwatch wearables and immune profiling), ocular alignment measurements and new protocols for in-depth, multi-omic molecular and cellular profiling. We collected data across the 3-day spaceflight mission, including a broad range of physiological and stress responses, neurovestibular changes indexed by ocular misalignment, and altered neurocognitive functioning, some of which match those of long-term spaceflight, but almost all of which did not differ from baseline (pre-flight) after return to Earth. Overall, these preliminary civilian spaceflight data suggest that short-duration missions do not pose a significant health risk, and moreover present a rich opportunity to measure the earliest phases of adaptation to spaceflight in the human body at anatomical, cellular, physiological and cognitive levels. Other civilian crews we have participated in include Polaris Dawn and Axiom missions.
Read more here: Molecular and physiological changes in the SpaceX Inspiration4 civilian crew
The success of long-duration spaceflight missions depends on astronauts’ abilities to appropriately respond to and cope with a variety of behavioral and psychosocial stressors throughout the mission, including prolonged confinement, isolation, and threat to life. NASA simulates these stressors in spaceflight analog environments to examine individual behavioral responses with the ultimate goal of predicting, preventing, and mitigating the consequences of these stressors during spaceflight. The spaceflight analog missions we have studied for NASA have varied in duration (i.e., from 1 month to 14 months) and in the severity of stressors (e.g., magnitude of confinement, social isolation, etc.). To evaluate astronaut behavioral health and performance, NASA developed “Standardized Behavioral Measures (SBM),” which is an assessment battery that probes neurocognitive and operational performance, as well as astronaut behavioral health and team cohesion.
Read more here: Standardized Behavioral Measures for Detecting Behavioral Health Risks during Exploration Missions
NASA’s Twins Study revealed how prolonged spaceflight affects human biology, using astronaut Scott Kelly—who spent 340 days aboard the ISS—and his identical twin, Mark, as a control on Earth. While Scott’s cognitive abilities such as alertness and spatial orientation remained largely stable during the mission, his speed and accuracy declined noticeably after returning to Earth. This is important as it suggests that astronauts can maintain high levels of cognitive performance for longer durations in space. The decrease in post-flight performance likely stemmed from readjustment to gravity and a demanding schedule, highlighting both the resilience of cognitive function in space and the vulnerabilities astronauts face during re-entry and recovery.
Read more here: The NASA Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-long human spaceflight
NASA’s Twins Study Results Published
How a year in space affects the brain
Future research directions to identify risks and mitigation strategies for neurostructural, ocular, and behavioral changes induced by human spaceflight: A NASA-ESA expert group consensus report
A second space age spanning omics, platforms and medicine across orbits
A brief history of spaceflight from 1961 to 2020: An analysis of missions and astronaut demographics
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