Mental Health

What Does Space Travel Do To Your Brain? Ask NASA

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Nov 09, 2015 10:21 AM EST

NASA's study is about how continuous exposure to space travel and conditions like gravity affects the human brain, according to Science Daily.

NASA examined brain scans of space explorers before as well as after their travel, and found interesting effects.

"We are looking at the volume of different structures in the brain and whether they change in size or shape during spaceflight," said Rachael D. Seidler, chief researcher for the study and director of the Neuromotor Behaviour Laboratory at University of Michigan.

In the published study, NASA ran a few tests in the middle of the mission in order to find out what was the impact of the space travel. If there were no effects of the gravity, or if it was less than that on Earth, the astronauts would have a tough time getting a grip on their bodies and finishing the tasks laid out before them that needed some focus.

Moreover, the astronauts would also have some problems with balancing their bodies and suffer from "perceptual illusions," or feeling as if "you are toggling between being right-side-up and upside-down even though you are completely still", according to The Daily Mail.

"On Earth, your vestibular, or balance, system tells you how your head moves relative to gravity, but in space, the gravity reference is gone," said Seidler.

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