Astronauts need to keep fit in space because weightlessness changes the body. Researchers have now discovered that this also applies to the brain.
Paris – Astronauts have been preparing for their journey into space for months. They train their bodies for weightlessness and work on their mental strength before venturing into the endless expanses. ESA researchers have now investigated the effects of space on the human brain. So far there has been little knowledge about it. The investigations yielded interesting results.
In space: astronauts’ brains change
Our brain is highly complex and changes over the years. As an international research team from the European space agency ESA and its Russian counterpart, Roskosmos, found out, space also transforms the brain. reported about it world and refers to the study results published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits were published.
For the research, twelve male cosmonauts were examined before and after their stay in space. Seven months after their journey into space, the team led by study leader Dr. Floris Wuyts from the University of Antwerp examined the men eight more times using a tractography. A kind of 3D scan of the brains was created. The astronauts were in space for an average of 172 days.
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During and after space travel: scans in cosmonauts – “the brain is rewired, so to speak”
The scientists found that the brains of astronauts were practically completely rewired. The changes in the nerve tracts of the white matter were particularly striking. It is responsible for signal transmission in the nervous system. The scans clearly showed that the cosmonauts’ brains have adapted to the conditions in space over time. “We found changes in the neural connections between several motor areas of the brain,” study author Andrei Doroshin is quoted as saying. “The brain is rewired, so to speak,” he continues.
The explanation as to why the brain changes is actually quite logical: the body has to adapt to weightlessness in space. This means that people have different movement sequences than normal. The brain reacts to this and changes the nervous system accordingly. Even half a year after returning to earth, this change could still be detected among the astronauts.
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At the beginning of the research, the experts only noticed an expansion of the fluid-filled chambers of the cerebral cortex. The bars serve as the central nerve connection between the two halves of the brain and consist of around 250 million nerve fibers. “In fact, these structural changes are caused by the expansion of the cerebral ventricles. This refers to the cavities filled with cerebrospinal fluid in the center of the brain. As they swell, further anatomical displacements of the adjacent nerve tissue take place,” reports world. In summary, this means that not only the structure of the brain in space is changed, but much more the networking and communication between the brain areas.
So far it has always been the case that an astronaut or cosmonaut “only” had to pay attention to his muscle and bone atrophy after his return. For this, several hours of sports in space and on earth were on the program. The latest research could now give the impetus for a special “brain jogging” for astronauts.
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