Astronaut blood samples suggest long-term exposure to weightlessness causes brain damage
New research comparing blood samples taken from five Russian astronauts before and after long term missions to ISS suggests that weightlessness can cause brain damage.
Published in JAMA Neurology, the new research looked at five male Russian cosmonauts. Each spent an average of 169 days in space. Blood samples were taken from each subject before leaving Earth, and then at three points after returning.
Five different blood-based biomarkers were measured, each known to correlate with some kind of brain damage. Three biomarkers in particular were found to be significantly elevated after the cosmonauts returned to Earth – neurofilament light (NfL), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and a specific type of amyloid beta protein.
The researchers hypothesize the increases in NfL and GFAP levels may indicate a type of neurodegeneration called axonal disintegration. Elevated NfL levels are currently being investigated as a way of detecting the earliest stages of brain damage associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
It must be emphasized that the research did not find brain damage, only data within the blood samples that is often associated with brain damage. More research is required to determine if these biomarkers indicate the same thing in space as they do on Earth.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
New research comparing blood samples taken from five Russian astronauts before and after long term missions to ISS suggests that weightlessness can cause brain damage.
Published in JAMA Neurology, the new research looked at five male Russian cosmonauts. Each spent an average of 169 days in space. Blood samples were taken from each subject before leaving Earth, and then at three points after returning.
Five different blood-based biomarkers were measured, each known to correlate with some kind of brain damage. Three biomarkers in particular were found to be significantly elevated after the cosmonauts returned to Earth – neurofilament light (NfL), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and a specific type of amyloid beta protein.
The researchers hypothesize the increases in NfL and GFAP levels may indicate a type of neurodegeneration called axonal disintegration. Elevated NfL levels are currently being investigated as a way of detecting the earliest stages of brain damage associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
It must be emphasized that the research did not find brain damage, only data within the blood samples that is often associated with brain damage. More research is required to determine if these biomarkers indicate the same thing in space as they do on Earth.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
For one thing, the sample size is ridiculously small. How many people have actually spent time in space?
If this turns out to be confirmed by further studies, we are going to need some form of artificial gravity for our trips to Mars.
So what you’re saying is the United States suffered a loss in gravity the past two years?
Great place for animal studies. Treatments for brain diseases have potential economic value exceeding space exploration budgets
Explains Senator Kelly
Here Be Dragons!
Pink Floyd / Mars Direct
“Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”
https://youtu.be/a9ntxCcjVjE
9:47
It explains Pakleds ;/ On a serious note…I see weightlessness as a form of dialysis…a way to shed disease markers before they can hide?
John: So what you’re saying is the United States suffered a loss in gravity the past two years?
Not the entire nation … just DC, a few state capitals, and several of our largest urban areas.