Space health experts at Northumbria
University are leading research into how astronauts’ bodies decondition while
living and working on the International Space Station (ISS).
Orbiting the Earth at an average altitude of
250 miles, astronauts on board the ISS experience
significant deconditioning of their bodies due to the reduced gravity
environment. Their muscles become smaller and weaker, and their bones
lose density.
A team from Northumbria University’s Aerospace Medicine andRehabilitation Laboratory, led by Professor Nick Caplan, working with the University
of Southampton and Durham University, has secured funding from the UK Space
Agency to explore the decline in size, quality and strength of spinal muscles
among astronauts after spending six months living and working on the ISS.
They will also assess changes in astronaut
spinal posture, their walking technique, control of movement and pain, immediately
following the astronauts’ returning from their mission to see if these changes
are related to the changes seen in their spinal muscles and bones. The team will also repeat their measurements 30
days after landing to evaluate the effects of the intense astronaut reconditioning
programmes in the first month returning to Earth.
The Northumbria University team will also take
its previous artificial gravity ‘bedrest study’ to the next level. Following a
successful contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) sponsored Artificial
Gravity Bedrest campaign in 2019, Professor Caplan led a successful bid to be
selected once again by ESA to take part in one of their next bedrest campaigns.
The 2019 campaign saw 24 participants spend 60
days in bed at the :envihab facility in Germany, where they continuously lay in
a head down tilt position to simulate the long-term effects of exposure to
microgravity.
They were also exposed to artificial gravity
for 30 minutes each day on a human centrifuge. This piece of equipment spun the
participants so that they were pulled down onto their feet, thus simulating the
gravitational loading normally experienced when standing up against Earth’s
gravity. In the next ESA bedrest campaign, this time taking place in Planica,
Slovenia, the Northumbria team will again evaluate the effectiveness of
artificial gravity on the spinal muscles and bones, but this time with
participants performing resistive vibration exercise while they are spun on the
centrifuge.
Professor Caplan and his team are interested in
spinal postural deconditioning, an issue relevant not just to astronauts, but
also to people on Earth with low back pain and age-related declines in spinal
posture. There is also likely to be a
growing number of people with spinal deconditioning following the Covid
lockdowns because of increased sedentary behaviour.
“Understanding the changes that
take place in the spinal muscles and bones following exposure to microgravity
is vital so that effective interventions can be developed to maintain spinal health,”
said Professor Caplan. “Our research will provide this information and
hopefully help astronauts stay injury free as they venture further out into the
solar system to the Moon and, one day, to Mars. We are really excited about recruiting our first astronauts onto the
study.”
University of Southampton’s
Professor Maria Stokes, OBE, added: “Our research is very relevant to healthcare on
Earth, as microgravity leads to rapid changes like those seen in patients e.g.,
after acute injury or enforced bed rest on intensive care, as well as longer-term
changes from inactivity due to diseases affecting mobility or a sedentary
lifestyle in the general population. Our findings should help us develop more
effective ways of targeting exercises to prevent loss of muscle function.”
The latest study at
Northumbria is one of five new projects set to receive a share of £440,000 of
UK Space Agency funding in its first year. These research projects will support much
longer space missions needed to explore the Moon and further afield. They
include an initiative from Manchester Metropolitan University to study the
prolonged effects of isolation on physical and psychological health, and a research
project from the University of Birmingham to investigate the effects of space
flight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS) – a condition that can have
severe consequences for astronaut health.
British European Space Agency astronaut Tim
Peake said: “It’s exciting to see this cutting-edge research taking place here
in the UK. We can learn so much about the human body from spaceflight,
especially the ageing process. This research could enable astronauts to carry
out longer missions and explore further into space, whilst benefiting everyone
on Earth.”
Science Minister George Freeman said: “Our
space science is about cutting-edge life science as well as rocketry and
satellites: the UK is at the heart of state-of-the-art biomedical monitoring,
providing huge potential insights into human health.
“This research could allow astronauts to
safely embark on longer and more challenging missions, for the benefit of us
all.”
The announcement comes during World Space Week, which runs from the 4th to 10th October. The annual event, led by the United Nations, celebrates the
contribution of science and technology to improving lives on Earth. This year’s
theme is Women in Space.
