McGregor Heather R, Hupfeld Kathleen E, Pasternak Ofer, Beltran Nichole E, De Dios Yiri E, Bloomberg Jacob J, Wood Scott J, Riascos Roy F, Reuter-Lorenz Patricia A, Seidler Rachael D
Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
NPJ Microgravity. 2025 Aug 28;11(1):59. doi: 10.1038/s41526-025-00505-9.
More people are traveling to space for longer durations than ever before. Many long-duration flyers exhibit signs of Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS). A greater understanding of the mechanisms and predictors of SANS may lead to new, more individually tailored countermeasures. Our objective here was to determine whether brain and ocular changes with spaceflight are related to each other and/or to crewmember demographic factors, including sex, age, body mass index, and prior spaceflight experience. We assessed brain change and ocular change associations and predictive models of changes in a cohort study. Our samples included 30 crewmembers with brain MRI but not ocular metrics, 37 with ocular but not brain MRI, and 22 with both sets of data. Approximately 25% of participants in each of these samples were female. Females showed greater free water reduction around the vertex of the brain from pre- to postflight than males. While not statistically significant, the odds ratio of males developing signs of SANS was approximately three times higher than for females. Unlike in past smaller studies, we found no association between brain changes and the development of signs of SANS. Interpretation of these findings should be tempered by the fact that our sample included a relatively small number of females.
前往太空旅行的人数比以往任何时候都更多，飞行时间也更长。许多长时间飞行的人都出现了航天相关神经眼综合征（SANS）的症状。对SANS的机制和预测因素有更深入的了解，可能会带来新的、更具个性化的应对措施。我们在此的目标是确定太空飞行引起的大脑和眼睛变化是否相互关联，以及是否与机组人员的人口统计学因素有关，这些因素包括性别、年龄、体重指数和既往太空飞行经历。我们在一项队列研究中评估了大脑变化和眼睛变化的关联以及变化的预测模型。我们的样本包括30名有脑部MRI但没有眼部测量数据的机组人员、37名有眼部测量数据但没有脑部MRI的机组人员，以及22名同时拥有这两组数据的机组人员。这些样本中每个样本约25%的参与者为女性。从飞行前到飞行后，女性大脑顶点周围的自由水减少量比男性更大。虽然没有统计学意义，但男性出现SANS症状的几率比女性高出约三倍。与过去规模较小的研究不同，我们发现大脑变化与SANS症状的出现之间没有关联。由于我们的样本中女性数量相对较少，对这些研究结果的解读应有所保留。
