NCT03786016

Evaluating Risk Factors and Biomarkers for Adaptation and Resilience to Spaceflight

Evaluating Risk Factors and Biomarkers for Adaptation and Resilience to Spaceflight: Emotional Valence and Social Processes in Isolated, Confined and Controlled Environments

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 32 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 30 Years – 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study assesses differences in biological and behavioral domains that relate to individual adaptation and resiliency to an isolated, confined and controlled environment, and evaluates the effect of confinement, work, monotony, and social and physical isolation on stress resiliency and well-being.

Detailed description

The goal of this study is to obtain novel information that will be used to help identify individuals who are resilient to the stressors of prolonged human spaceflight, thereby encouraging the successful completion of exploration missions and the preservation of health over the life of an astronaut. This study leverages the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) heuristic framework to conduct experimental studies to identify biological domains (molecular, circuitry, physiology) and behavioral domains that relate to individual adaptation and resiliency (as well as behavioral vulnerability) in spaceflight-relevant confined environments. This study focuses specifically on differences among participants in their tolerance of and adaptability to simulated conditions of spaceflight such as confinement, work, monotony, and social/physical isolation that impact behavioral health and performance.

Conditions

• Resilience
• Mood
• Performance
• Stress, Psychological

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	8-Days in an Isolation, Confinement Unit	Subjects will spend 8 days/7 nights continuously in an isolated and confined unit with up to 3 other subjects. Subjects will participate in daily, timed activities such as space-relevant computer simulations, team tasks, and cognitive performance testing. Subjects will also experience altered environmental conditions (such as changes in lighting, sound and ambient temperature) while in the isolation unit. Subjects will receive orders from "mission control" who will monitor activity in the isolation unit and direct subjects throughout the 8-day study.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-02-22
• Primary completion: 2024-12-10
• Completion: 2025-02-28
• First posted: 2018-12-24
• Last updated: 2025-04-06

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States