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a major focus of science on the

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international space station is to learn

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about how extended exposure to the

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spaceflight environment impacts a human

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body from its bones and muscles to the

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eyes the

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cardiopulmonary system and the brain and

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nervous system

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one new experiment in that area is

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called space flight effects of

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neurocognitive performance or neural

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mapping for short and we're going to be

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talking next with principal investigator

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dr rachel seidler of the university of

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michigan she's joining us to tell us a

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little bit more about that research

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thanks so much for joining us rachel

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sure good morning brandi

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morning um well why don't we start with

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something simple and and maybe you can

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explain to us uh

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what uh or why we suspect long duration

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space flight causes changes to the brain

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sure right there are two lines of

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evidence that led us to develop this

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study one is that there have been

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numerous animal models flown in space

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that have shown changes to brain

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structure and function

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particularly in brain regions that are

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involved with sensory motor control

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and the other reason why we think there

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are likely changes in brain structure

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and function is that

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we know there are extensive changes in

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sensory motor behaviors particularly

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those that rely on the vestibular system

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and

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when we see dramatic changes like this

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on earth we know it's typically

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accompanied with some kind of

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neuroplastic changes in the brain

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so that's that's actual physical changes

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or just changes in the way the brain

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works

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both we'll be looking at both um with

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mri we can look at structural metrics of

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the brain so for example are there

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regional changes in gray matter volume

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which tends to reflect things like

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uh synaptic changes that are occurring

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with behavior

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uh we also will do something called

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diffusion-weighted imaging where we can

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look at large white matter tracks in the

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brain

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and then we will also do functional

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imaging so we can look at the various

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networks that the brain recruits to

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perform a given behavior

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and whether there's a change in the

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networks that are reliant on relied upon

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for various tasks

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from pre to post flight

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so i know a lot of uh

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there's a lot of pretty sophisticated

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equipment on board the space station but

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probably not everything you need to do

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all that what can they do in space

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right so we certainly we don't have an

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mri scanner on the space station at

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least not yet um so we're doing all of

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the brain scanning pre and post flight a

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couple of time points before people go

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up and then several time points when

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they get back so we can look at recovery

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of brain structure and function as well

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so what the crew are doing on station is

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a subset of our behavioral tests

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and they're doing this at three time

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points throughout their mission so

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uh verts did his first neural mapping

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behavioral testing yesterday

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and the tests that he's doing include a

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mental rotation test so we show him

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different cube shapes on the screen

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he has to mentally rotate these shapes

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and indicate whether they match a target

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or not we also are asking him to do some

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dual tasking with cognitive and motor

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tasks so we have him do

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tasks one at a time and then he has to

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put them together and do them at the

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same time

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and then we also have a manual sensory

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motor adaptation task where he uses a

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small joystick to hit targets on a

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computer screen that's displayed in

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okay and i guess i know that uh barry

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wilmore was going to be taking some

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photos of verts as he was uh going

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through some of those tests this morning

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is that is that part of the actual test

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or is it just to verify that everything

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looks like it's supposed to

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yeah the photos are to help us document

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that everything's going fine we have a

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couple of different configurations that

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we ask the crew to perform these tests

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in so for one they have their feet

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in straps so their feet are pressed onto

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a surface and often times when the crew

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do this they actually have an illusion

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that up is up and and down is down and

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we're wondering how this

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orientation anchoring will affect their

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ability to perform our tasks so we also

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have another configuration where they do

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the tasks and they're just floating uh

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in space and they're anchored to the

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equipment with a tether so the photo is

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to document that everything's

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set up appropriately in terms of these

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two configurations and i haven't had a

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chance to download the figure yet i hurt

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the photo i've heard they were taken

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um but we haven't had a chance to look

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yet we're very excited to see how it

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went

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well it sounds like really interesting

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research um is it something that you

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think you will help you develop counter

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measures or is it just good knowledge to

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have as you're planning for what types

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of activities crew members do or that

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sort of thing

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yes so to start with brandy this is

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really a risk assessment study no one

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has yet looked at how space flight

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affects the brain

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you know whether there's actually

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atrophy that occurs or if it all seems

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to be compensatory plasticity or perhaps

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a combination of the two so we don't

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really know what the risk level is

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so really this study is tracking what

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changes take place in the brain

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and then we will also document the time

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course of recovery and then this will

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help us to understand how significant of

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a risk is this

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what kind of counter measures do we need

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to think about evaluating and

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implementing

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we do have a parallel study that we're

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connect conducting here on earth in one

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of nasa's bedrest analog environments

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and we're seeing a lot of changes there

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and brain structure and function so we

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really think we'll see some parallel

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effects with space flight

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well it sounds fascinating are there

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benefits to those of us here on earth as

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well

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yes um you know certainly you can think

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about um

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a lot of the changes that we see in

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behavior with flight come from

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alterations in vestibular processing so

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the vestibular system is the small organ

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in the inner ear that helps you to

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maintain your balance and orientation

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and this is a system that shows declines

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with age and contributes to falling

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there are also patients that have

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different lesions to the vestibular

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system so better understanding of how we

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adapt to

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conditions in which the vestibular

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system is functioning differently as

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well as just unloading of the body and

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reduce somatosensory inputs i think will

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be really important for understanding

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not only healthy aging but also some of

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these

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vestibular conditions and as well for

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people that are

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on long duration bed rest or for some

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reason having a substantial drop in

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their activity and sensory inputs

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okay well we will look forward to

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hearing more about that as you continue

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on continue on with the research thank

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you so much for joining us again that

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was dr rachel seidler who is the

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principal investigator for the neuro