When we ask most children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, the answer we get is “Astronaut”. This profession, which offers the opportunity to explore in the depths of space, has undoubtedly adorned the dreams of many of us as children. However, you will appreciate that being an astronaut is also one of the most difficult professions in the world. So much so that this profession often demands that you put your work ahead of your private life and give a lot of yourself.
However, the challenges of astronaut are not limited to these. Being in an environment different from the Earth’s atmosphere that you have been accustomed to for a very long time, of course, has some consequences for your body. One of these results is that astronauts have marked changes in their brains even months after they return to Earth, according to a new study.
Major changes are taking place in the brains of first-time astronauts in space
We’ll focus on the latest assessments of the distortion effect of microgravity on our biology, focusing on the areas surrounding the blood vessels that run through our brains. Astronauts are subject to worrying variations between missions, according to the report.
Researchers from around the US compared a series of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 15 astronauts’ brains before they went to the International Space Station and six months after their return. The team used algorithms to carefully evaluate the size of the perivascular spaces, which are spaces in the brain tissue thought to facilitate the balance of fluids; He found that time spent in orbit had a profound effect on the cerebral vasculature, at least for first-timers.
There are no major changes in the brain scans of senior astronauts
On the other hand, the dimensions of the perivascular spaces of the veteran astronauts examined differed from each other in the two scans taken before the mission and in the four scans taken after the mission. It turned out not to be much different. Juan Piantino, a neurologist at Oregon Health and Science University, explains this by saying that experienced astronauts may have undergone a kind of ‘homeostasis’, that is, the body may have changed to adapt to environmental differences and reached a state of equilibrium.
These findings may not be all that surprising given what we already know about how the brain degrades in the absence of constant gravity. Previous studies on brain tissues and fluid volumes have shown that they are slow to recover after a trip into space; it was even found that some changes continued for a year or more.
Space astronaut brains adapt to a new kind of ‘normal’
Currently, astronauts seldom make more than a few trips into space in their lifetime, and often They stay in space for about six months at a time. However, the fact that the space industry has become more and more commercial with the developments in space science in recent years means that this situation may change. At this point, it is of great importance to understand whether repeated journeys are harmful and whether the changes in the brains of astronauts during the first trip into space temporarily adapt them to a new kind of ‘normal’.
It is not yet fully known whether this change poses any significant health risks, even if the enlarged perivascular spaces are involved. It is too early to say whether microgravity has any effect on the circulation of the cerebrospinal fluid, whether changes in the shape of the duct networks are significant. And it looks like it will remain a mystery until researchers have many more examples of senior astronauts.
But hypothetically speaking, if these channels in the brain are not working efficiently, there can be a buildup of destructive materials in the brain, which could potentially contribute to a person – in this case astronauts – developing neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s.
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