New Research Will Elucidate the Effects of Space Travel on the Human Brain

Hyperfine (Guilford, CT), in collaboration with the Medical University of South Carolina, has announced a project to assess changes in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume of astronauts on the commercial Polaris Dawn mission. Polaris Dawn was a 5-day orbital mission recently launched on September 10, 2024, operated by SpaceX (Brownsville, TX), to study the impacts of high-altitude spaceflight on human health and the use of the Starlink communications system in outer space.

The Swoop Portable MR Imaging system (Hyperfine, Guilford, CT) will be used to acquire brain images for the astronauts 7 days before the launch of the mission, hours after their return to Earth, and 1 day after their return. The volumetric analysis of the brain and CSF will be used to investigate health concerns of zero-gravity exposure, such as intracranial venous congestion or spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). The health data collected during Polaris Dawn is intended to assist in future, longer-term space missions, including the potential construction of bases on the Moon and Mars.

“This research will help us understand how human physiology adapts to spaceflight and zero-gravity environments,” said Donna Roberts, MD, MS, Principal Investigator of the study and Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. “Using brain images acquired with the Swoop system, we aim to gain valuable insights into the etiology of spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS)—a condition in which astronauts experience changes in vision, alterations to the retina, and in some cases, swelling of the optic disc and increased intracranial pressure.”