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a number of studies always taking place

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onboard the international space station

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tracking astronaut health in a variety

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of ways whether it's different bodily

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systems or even how the astronauts are

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able to function while in that

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microgravity environment and we're lucky

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to be joined today uh by one of the

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principal investigators of a study

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that's actually that's taking a look

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kind of at a bit of the nuts and bolts

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of how the astronauts are able to

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function while they're in that

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microgravity for a long period of time

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and it's a study called cognition and

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i'm joined today by

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the principal investigator dr matthias

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basner from

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the university of pennsylvania school of

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medicine so first off dr basner thank

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you so much for joining me today and i'd

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like to jump right in so what exactly

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about the space environment could cause

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you know changes in the astronauts

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cognitive ability

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well good morning first of all and it's

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a pleasure to be on your program

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i mean first of all there is a

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of course psychological factors related

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to living in an isolated confined and

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extreme environment

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that could affect congress performance

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but there's also a lot of environmental

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stressors

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some of them unique to the space flight

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environment like microgravity or think

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of radiation during exploration type

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missions that can affect congress

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performance

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and another factor that we know of is

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like

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iss six-month iss missions are

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characterized by high workload periods

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and also chronic sleep restriction of

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course these factors may also affect

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cognitive performance

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okay so we know some of the

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you know external factors that can cause

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these what are some of the actual issues

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the cognitive issues that were that

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these could cause what are we what are

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we worried about

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well obviously you know cognitive

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performance has very many facets and all

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of them are important for mission

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success in one way or another

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three examples are for example attention

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memory and reasoning that are very

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important what our test battery looks at

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also is spatial orientation

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risk decision making and emotional

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processing which we believe are really

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essential for mission success so one

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example is the emotional processing the

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so the question is if you're

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going to mars and flying back are you

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still able to read your fellow

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astronauts faces if somebody is angry

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are you still able to detect that and

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this is what we're looking at for

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example

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so a lot of the underlying things that

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can have a huge effect just on you know

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the day-to-day life of these astronauts

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on board you would mention fatigue and

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sleep have

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obviously i know when i don't get a good

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night's sleep that could that can ruin

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my whole day is that something you guys

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have kind of looked into how to better

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manage

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the sleep and fatigue factor of

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cognitive ability

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definitely yes and obviously fatigue

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resulting from sleep loss is only one

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factor that can affect cognitive

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performance

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nasa has actually put great effort in

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the past both in terms of basic research

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and in terms of applied research to

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mitigate the risk associated with

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chronic sleep loss i guess the best

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example is the lighting system the

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current fluorescent lighting system

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is in the process of being replaced with

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state-of-the-art led lighting where the

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intensity and spectral composition of

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the light can actually be varied

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systematically so for example in the

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morning you could expose the crew to

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alerting blue enriched light well in the

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evening you give them a

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red light which is promoting the

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secretion of melatonin which which helps

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them go to uh sleep more easily so these

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are just few examples

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pretty cool thing just you know playing

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with the lighting these men and women

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don't get you know normal sunrise sunset

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like we do so you don't know exactly

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how big of an effect that can have yeah

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they have it every 90 minutes pretty

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much uh dusk and dawn so yeah

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okay so what are some of the things your

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test your or how are you guys testing

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this what are some of the actual actions

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you're doing to try and test this

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cognitive ability

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yeah so our software is installed on one

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of the hr fpcs in the columbus module

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cognition itself is a battery of 10

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cognitive tests specifically designed

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for the astronaut population because we

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know

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they're highly motivated so just taking

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a standard cognitive test may not work

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for this population it takes less than

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20 minutes to administer you know that

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time is gold on the space station it's

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very rare

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the battery covers a broad range of

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cognitive domains and we know which

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brain regions are recruited by each of

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the individual tests which is important

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so we can make indirect

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inferences

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if we see a decrement in one test we may

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know what brain region is affected which

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is important because we don't have

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neuroimaging capability on the station

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right now what the astronauts currently

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do they take the the full battery four

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times pre-flight eleven times in flight

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with two to three week intervals during

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six-month missions

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and uh three times post-flight and the

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data then compared within each

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individual astronaut but we also

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generated normative data on the ground

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an astronaut in an astronaut population

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that is not affected by any of the space

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space flight stressors

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cognition is also part of the 12-month

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mission

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and it's also part of the twin study

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that nasa is performing right now okay

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so after we've you know collected all

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the data and we're able to look at how

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is how is this going to be able to help

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you know what what will your test be

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able to do to you know

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help prove the cognitive improve on the

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the cognitive ability of astronauts only

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you know on space station missions but

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say astronauts like you had mentioned

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before on a trip to mars or something

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how is this how is this going to help

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yeah so right now a cognition is really

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a research tool and what we want to do

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we want to find out how individual

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spaceflight stressors affect cognitive

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performance with the goal to mitigate

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these risks so it's you know what are

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the individual stressors how do they

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affect performance is there something we

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can do about it obviously in the long

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run what we would like to see is to

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really transition

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cognition into operations so that we can

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use this tool to monitor astronaut

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cognitive performance very much like

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nasa is doing with winscad right now

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what the

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astronaut

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gets immediate feedback so the software

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will provide a standardized score after

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each test and with all it will also show

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historic data so the astronaut can see

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how he or she has performed on the test

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in the past and how the current test

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bout uh compares to that data

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very cool and one thing we're always

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interested in finding out you know so

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much what we do on board the station

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having some direct benefits to you know

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those of us back down here on earth how

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could this cognition study potentially

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help you know just regular people back

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down here on the surface

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well as i mentioned earlier now this is

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we specifically designed designed this

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for astronauts and

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astronauts are high performing

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populations but there are other

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high-performing populations on the

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ground think for example of medical

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doctors where we could apply this this

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test battery in these populations

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cognition is already embedded in four

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antarctic stations uh which nasa

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actually uses as a space space analog

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environments and obviously you know

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these environments are also harsh

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with threat to life conditions with

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confinement isolation

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and also with the strange lighting

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conditions that we have on the space

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station on a trip to mars so you know in

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the end we can also help these

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populations to uh to to monitor them and

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to to find out which factors are