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Image for representation. Credits: News18.
Symptoms of this condition include difficulty walking, bladder control problems, and dementia.
- IANS
- Last update: April 18, 2020 4:43 PM IST
Long-lasting space travel could lead to permanent changes in brain volume, as well as deformation of the pituitary gland in astronauts, a study warns.
For the study, published in the journal Radiology, researchers performed brain MRI on 11 astronauts, including 10 men and one woman, before traveling to the International Space Station (ISS).
The researchers continued the MRI studies the day after the astronauts returned, and then at various intervals during the following year.
The MRI results showed that long-term exposure to microgravity caused expansions in the combined volumes of the brain and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of the astronauts.
CSF is the fluid that flows into and around the hollow spaces of the brain and spinal cord.
The combined volumes remained high for one year after the flight, suggesting a permanent alteration.
“What we identify that no one has really identified before is that there is a significant increase in white matter volume in the brain from the previous flight to the subsequent flight,” said study lead author Larry Kramer of the Center for Science in the University of Texas Health at Houston, USA USA
“In fact, the expansion of white matter is responsible for the largest increase in combined cerebrospinal fluid and brain volumes after flight,” said Kramer.
Magnetic resonance imaging also showed abnormalities in the pituitary gland, a pea-sized structure at the base of the skull, often called the “master gland” because it governs the function of many other glands in the body.
Most astronauts had MRI evidence of deformation of the pituitary gland, suggesting elevated intracranial pressure during space flight.
“We found that the pituitary gland loses height and is smaller after the flight than it was before the flight,” Kramer said.
The researchers also observed an increase in post-flight volume, on average, in astronauts’ lateral ventricles, spaces in the brain that contain CSF.
However, the resulting overall volume would not be considered outside the range of healthy adults.
The changes were similar to those that occur in people who have spent long periods of bed rest with their heads slightly tilted down in research studies that simulate forward fluid change in microgravity.
Additionally, there was an increase in the speed of CSF flow through the cerebral aqueduct, a narrow channel connecting the ventricles in the brain.
A similar phenomenon has been observed in hydrocephalus at normal pressure, a condition in which the ventricles in the brain are abnormally enlarged.
Symptoms of this condition include difficulty walking, bladder control problems, and dementia.
To date, these symptoms have not been reported in astronauts after space travel.
Also, long periods in space are known to cause vision problems for astronauts.
More than half of the crew members on the ISS have reported changes in their vision after prolonged exposure to microgravity from space.
