After spaceflight, astronauts often experience symptoms that affect their sensory systems, such as unsteadiness when walking or standing, blurred vision, and fatigue. These symptoms are called Bilateral vestibular disorder or BVP. Patients on Earth can also experience BVP, but they have different symptoms than astronauts who suffer from BVP. Scientists believe these differences occur in the part of the sensory system responsible for tracking head movement and body orientation in space. This includes the set of nerves in your ear. vestibular nerve.
Astronauts experience lower gravity than on Earth. Under these conditions, the organs in the inner ear that our brains use to sense head movement and spatial orientation don’t work properly. This makes it difficult for astronauts to determine their body’s actual position, movement, and altitude. After returning to Earth’s gravity, astronauts typically need to undergo rehabilitation to correct any resulting balance and coordination problems.
French researchers recently compared the symptoms of BVP experienced by astronauts during readjustment to Earth’s gravity with those of BVP patients on Earth. The team wanted to test strategies to help people on Earth adapt to BVP during rehabilitation, in hopes of establishing or improving rehabilitation strategies for astronauts returning from space.
The researchers recruited 28 astronauts, seven men and 11 women, with an average age of 48, all of whom lived on the spacecraft. international space station For 6 to 11 months. They also recruited 30 patients, including 13 men and 17 women with an average age of 61 years, all of whom had BVP but had never left Earth. They asked each participant to perform his five tests designed to examine mobility and reaction time.
To examine participants’ balance, we measured the time it took them to stand up from a sitting position and establish a stable posture. “Standing test”. They then measured how long it took them to walk around the cone. “Walk around test”. We then asked participants to: from heel to toe This is called the “tandem walk test” and is similar to walking a tightrope with your arms crossed in front of your chest. The researchers recorded each participant repeating this procedure twice and examined each recording to determine the correct number of steps taken during each trial.
The researchers also asked patients to track their progress for one minute while wearing the device. Virtual reality (VR) devices and earphones that mask external noise. The VR device instructed the patient to press the “run” button on the laptop mouse, wait 1 minute, and then press the “stop” button. They used this test, known as the “Duration Judgment Test,” to see how well each participant performed. I felt the passage of time. Finally, the participant who turned on the VR device was asked to respond as quickly as possible to a blue square that was displayed for 50 ms at random intervals.reaction time test. The researchers gave these tests to astronauts about three months before launch, once a month during spaceflight, two hours after returning to Earth, and 24 hours after returning to Earth. A test was conducted.
Researchers found that earthbound BVP patients walked around the cone more slowly than Astronauts did so during and after spaceflight. They also found that BVP patients took fewer correct tightrope steps than astronauts in the 24 hours after returning to Earth. However, the time it took for BVP patients on Earth to calm down during the sit-to-stand test fell between the day the astronauts landed and 24 hours later. Both BVP patients and astronauts who remained on Earth were unable to properly sense the passage of time and were slow to respond to blue squares.
The researchers concluded that problems with balance, sensing the passage of time, and reaction time experienced by astronauts after spaceflight are similar to those experienced by BVP patients on Earth. Therefore, they proposed that these problems, similar to those in earthbound patients, are caused by central nervous system dysfunction that affects the senses. To reduce these post-flight health problems, the researchers recommended that astronauts undergo training designed to improve their vision, hearing, and touch during orbit and after spaceflight.
The researchers cited two limitations of the study: the age difference between the astronauts and the Earth-bound group, and the fact that the BVP subjects on Earth received rehabilitation therapy, while the astronauts did not. I was warned that there was a point. They also were unable to test the astronauts post-flight to properly diagnose central nervous system conditions, so further research is needed to confirm whether the central nervous system is causing these symptoms. He pointed out that.
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Source: sciworthy.com
