The human race is not made to live in a place other than your planet. Astronauts who have spent long periods of time on the International Space Station have repeatedly described the mental fatigue and difficulty concentrating that often affect them , and have even christened the phenomenon: they call it “the fog of space.”
It’s a serious problem up there, where maximum attention is needed to complete precision tasks under difficult conditions. For this reason, NASA has supported the development of a tool that assesses the mental state of astronauts and their ability to do what they should. The result of this work is called “Cognition”, and consists of ten computer tests that measure how the physical changes of space flight affect the cognitive capacity of the crew. In this way, an immediate diagnosis is obtained of the “state of form” in which the brain of the participants in a mission is found.
Developing these tests has taken four years of work for their main creator, Mathias Basner, an associate professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Basner has developed a test that is completed in just 20 minutes and assesses various brain functions that give an accurate picture of the health and capacity of the subject studied: memory, stability of attention, motor response speed, spatial orientation – something crucial in microgravity conditions – emotions …
It must be borne in mind that astronauts, although highly prepared, face harsh conditions: interruptions to sleep and rhythms of life, complicated and very physically and mentally demanding jobs, high levels of radiation and carbon dioxide, microgravity … and mental illnesses derived from isolation, confinement and the burden of being away from home.
This test is not only for those who leave Earth or are preparing to do so. It has been designed for any highly trained person who faces demanding tasks. In Basner’s words, “It can be performed on surgeons and pilots who suffer from fatigue problems. We have tested it in scientists working in Antarctica, an environment that has similarities to space ”. In addition, the difficulty of the test can be adjusted for use in other areas : for example, in distinguishing age-specific brain changes from those that denote dementia or other diseases.
Image: NASA
