Spaceflight – both short-duration space shuttle missions and longer periods living on the International Space Station (ISS) – alters the human body, including widespread changes in the brain. By studying brain scans of astronauts before and after space travel, a multi-institutional research team has found that ventricles – fluid-filled cavities in the brain – expand significantly in longer spaceflight missions, and that inter-mission intervals of less than three years may not be long enough for them to fully recover.
Time spent in space induces displacement of intracranial fluid and an upward shift of the brain within the skull, causing cortical crowding and narrowing of the sulci, the grooves in the cerebral cortex, at the top of the brain. With future space exploration including more long-duration missions, it is imperative to understand the effects of space travel on the brain.
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