Showing papers by "Mathias Basner published in 2020"
Cornell University1, Ames Research Center2, Universities Space Research Association3, University of Wisconsin-Madison4, University of Texas Medical Branch5, Russian Academy of Sciences6, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency7, University of Tsukuba8, Tohoku University9, Kennedy Space Center10, European Space Agency11, California Institute of Technology12, University of Pennsylvania13, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory14, Northwestern University15, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia16, Colorado State University17, Columbia University18, Broad Institute19
TL;DR: The known hazards of human spaceflight are reviewed, how spaceflight affects living systems through these six fundamental features, and the associated health risks of space exploration are discussed.
131 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested that more than two nights of recovery sleep are needed to fully restore memory function and hippocampal-memory associations after one night of total sleep loss.
Abstract: Sleep deprivation significantly impairs a range of cognitive and brain function, particularly episodic memory and the underlying hippocampal function. However, it remains controversial whether one or two nights of recovery sleep following sleep deprivation fully restores brain and cognitive function. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and examined the effects of two consecutive nights (20-hour time-in-bed) of recovery sleep on resting-state hippocampal connectivity and episodic memory deficits following one night of total sleep deprivation (TSD) in 39 healthy adults in a controlled in-laboratory protocol. TSD significantly reduced memory performance in a scene recognition task, impaired hippocampal connectivity to multiple prefrontal and default mode network regions, and disrupted the relationships between memory performance and hippocampal connectivity. Following TSD, two nights of recovery sleep restored hippocampal connectivity to baseline levels, but did not fully restore memory performance nor its associations with hippocampal connectivity. These findings suggest that more than two nights of recovery sleep are needed to fully restore memory function and hippocampal-memory associations after one night of total sleep loss.
41 citations
TL;DR: An analysis of manned spaceflights by astronauts from 1961-2020 to investigate historical trends over time and between space agencies in terms of astronaut demographics and spaceflight duration finds that women continue to be underrepresented as astronauts.
39 citations
TL;DR: The findings suggest that confinement and relative isolation of up to 2 weeks in this environment do not induce a significant negative impact on cognitive performance in any of the domains examined by Cognition, although the concurrent practice effect may have masked some of the mission’s effects.
Abstract: Maintaining optimal cognitive performance in astronauts during spaceflight is critical to crewmember safety and mission success. To investigate the combined effects of confinement, isolation, and sleep deprivation on cognitive performance during spaceflight, we administered the computerized neurobehavioral test battery "Cognition" to crew members of simulated spaceflight missions as part of NASA's ground-based Human Exploration Research Analog project. Cognition was administered to N = 32 astronaut-like subjects in four 1-week missions (campaign 1) and four 2 weeks missions (campaign 2), with four crewmembers per mission. In both campaigns, subjects performed significantly faster on Cognition tasks across time in mission without sacrificing accuracy, which is indicative of a learning effect. On an alertness and affect survey, subjects self-reported significant improvement in several affective domains with time in mission. During the sleep restriction challenge, subjects in campaign 1 were significantly less accurate on a facial emotion identification task during a night of partial sleep restriction. Subjects in campaign 2 were significantly slower and less accurate on psychomotor vigilance, and slower on cognitive throughput and motor praxis tasks during a night of total sleep deprivation. On the survey, subjects reported significantly worsening mood during the sleep loss challenge on several affective domains. These findings suggest that confinement and relative isolation of up to 2 weeks in this environment do not induce a significant negative impact on cognitive performance in any of the domains examined by Cognition, although the concurrent practice effect may have masked some of the mission's effects. Conversely, a night of total sleep deprivation significantly decreased psychomotor vigilance and cognitive throughput performance in astronaut-like subjects. This underscores the importance of using cognitive tests designed specifically for the astronaut population, and that survey a range of cognitive domains to detect the differential effects of the wide range of stressors common to the spaceflight environment.
22 citations
TL;DR: Protracted, non-linear practice effects well beyond the second administration were observed for most of the10 Cognition tests both in accuracy and speed, but test-retest administration interval significantly affected practice effects only for 3 out of the 10 tests and only in the speed domain.
Abstract: Practice effects associated with the repeated administration of cognitive tests often confound true therapeutic or experimental effects. Alternate test forms help reduce practice effects, but gener...
16 citations
TL;DR: Regardless of month or method, the incidence risk of suicide at night is higher than at any other time of day, and demographic subgroups did not differentially experience higher risks across months or mechanisms at night.
Abstract: Objective Insomnia is a risk factor for suicide, and the risk of suicide after accounting for population wakefulness is disproportionately highest at night. This study investigated whether this risk varied across months and/or methods of suicide. Methods Time, date, method (eg, firearm, poisoning), and demographic information for 35,338 suicides were collected from the National Violent Death Reporting System for the years 2003-2010. Time of fatal injury was grouped into 1-hour bins and compared to the estimated hourly proportion of the population awake from the American Time Use Survey for 2003-2010. Negative binomial modeling then generated hourly incidence risk ratios (IRRs) of suicide. Risks were then aggregated into 4 categories: morning (6:00 am to 11:59 am), afternoon (noon to 5:59 pm), evening (6:00 pm to 11:59 pm), and night (midnight to 5:59 am). Results The risk of suicide was higher at night across all months (P .05). Conclusions Regardless of month or method, the incidence risk of suicide at night is higher than at any other time of day. Additionally, demographic subgroups did not differentially experience higher risks across months or mechanisms at night.
15 citations
TL;DR: The approach of using electrocardiography and actigraphy to monitor sleep was implemented around Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and the approach has been demonstrated to be feasible for the purpose of the larger-scale study among a representative population around multiple airports in the future.
11 citations
TL;DR: A large retrospective cohort study that utilized the Ontario Population Health and Environment Cohort (ONPHEC), a cohort of Canadian-born people of Ontario who were 35 years or older in 1996 with follow-up data until 2014, to investigate the effects of road traffic noise on incident diabetes mellitus and hypertension.
Abstract: W ith increasing urbanization, exposure to environmental noise and air pollution is growing. A recent update to the World Health Organization’s Environmental Noise Guidelines corroborates that noise poses a risk to public health, but also shows that high-quality epidemiologic studies are still missing for several noise sources and health outcomes. The study by Shin et al in this issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) is a large retrospective cohort study that utilized the Ontario Population Health and Environment Cohort (ONPHEC), a cohort of Canadian-born people of Ontario who were 35 years or older in 1996 with follow-up data until 2014, to investigate the effects of road traffic noise on incident diabetes mellitus and hypertension. The current study was restricted to individuals who resided in Toronto for at least 5 years, and were free of hypertension (n=701 174) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D; n=914 607). Using spatial random-effects Cox proportional hazards models, with Toronto neighborhoods as random effects, Shin et al estimate that a 10 dBA increase in 24 hours road traffic noise was associated with an 8% elevated risk of diabetes mellitus and a 2% elevated risk of hypertension. These estimates were robust to adjustments for 2 common traffic pollutants: ultrafine particulate matter (UFP) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). The identified links of both hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus incidences with urban traffic noise are important because across the world, obesity and diabetes mellitus are increasing at alarming rates in developed and in developing countries. Although much research has been focused on the role of diet and physical activity, recent reports suggest that urbanization, accompaniedbymigration tomorepolluted areas (including with light and air pollution) and ourmodern 24-hour lifestyle (wherein 35% of adults sleep less than the recommended 7 to 8 hours sleep per night) could be significant factors fueling the worldwide increase in CVD and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The current study contributes to our understanding that noise is an environmental factor that exerts a significant effect on our biology (Figure). Mechanistically, it is thought that (as depicted) noise stimulates an auditory afferent that activates the amygdala, and subsequent efferent output from the autonomic nervous system includes both release of corticotropic releasing hormone (hypothalamus) and increased cortisol (adrenal cortex) and neurally-triggered catecholamine release (adrenal medulla). Likewise, both pulmonary and olfactory sensory afferents are implicated in mediating air pollution exposure-dependent central nervous system activation with efferents likely including both autonomic nervous system stimulation (shared pathway with noise) and release of circulating inflammatory mediators. Collectively, these efferents mediate systemic “stress responses” that may increase insulin resistance, inflammation, disturb sleep, etc. This study continues a trend of studies that leverage large existing health databases to investigate the effects of noise on diverse health outcomes. However, these studies often lack spatial precision (eg, locations only available at zip-code level) and relevant confounders at the individual level. While the former leads to exposure misclassification that biases the results towards the null, the latter introduces ecologic features thatcanalsoproduceabiasaway fromthenull. Thisstudystands out as it addresses some of these shortcomings with multilevel analysis to account for correlated factors within neighborhoods and various sensitivity analyses, including indirect adjustments of smoking and obesity. While leveraging existing data sets is a cost-effective and commendable approach in general, noise exposure is always an afterthought in these studies (ie, they The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the editors or of the American Heart Association. From the Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (M.B.); Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute (D.W.R., D.J.C.), Diabetes & Obesity Center (D.W.R., D.J.C.), Superfund Research Center (D.W.R., D.J.C.), Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, School of Public Health and Information Sciences (D.W.R.), and Division of Environmental Medicine, Department of Medicine (D.J.C.), University of Louisville, Louisville, KY. *Dr Basner and Mr Riggs are co-first authors. Correspondence to: Daniel J. Conklin, PhD, Diabetes and Obesity Center, University of Louisville, Delia Baxter Building, Rm. 404E, 580 S. Preston St, Louisville, KY 40202. E-mail: dj.conklin@louisville.edu J Am Heart Assoc. 2020;9:e016048. DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.120.016048. a 2020 The Authors. Published on behalf of the American Heart Association, Inc., by Wiley. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
11 citations
TL;DR: Basner et al. as discussed by the authors demonstrated direct links between performance on tests designed to assess specific cognitive domains and complex operational docking performance and simulated 6 degrees-of-freedom (6df) spacecraft docking performance.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Environmental and operational stressors commonly encountered in spaceflight can affect astronaut cognitive performance. It is currently unclear how performance decrements on test batteries that assess individual cognitive domains translate to complex operational performance.METHODS:N 30 healthy adults (mean SD age 33.5 7.1 yr, range 2548 yr; 16 men) with demographic characteristics similar to astronauts performed all 10 tests of the Cognition test battery as well as a simulated 6 degrees-of-freedom (6df) spacecraft docking task 15 times. Performance on 60 Cognition outcome variables was rank-correlated with 6df docking performance individually as well as in models containing up to 12 predictors after accounting for sex, age, and study design effects.RESULTS: Average response time on the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST)a measure of processing speed requiring complex scanning, visual tracking, and working memorywas the best individual predictor of 6df docking performance (unadjusted r 0.550; semipartial cross-validated R² 0.244). Furthermore, higher levels of spatial orientation efficiency and vigilant attention, lower levels of impulsivity, and faster response speed were associated with higher 6df performance, while sensorimotor speed, memory, and risk decision making were less relevant. After semipartial cross-validation, a model with three Cognition outcomes (DSST average response time, Abstract Matching accuracy, and conservative response bias on the Fractal 2-Back test) explained 30% of the variance in 6df performance.CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates direct links between performance on tests designed to assess specific cognitive domains and complex operational docking performance.Basner M, Moore TM, Hermosillo E, Nasrini J, Dinges DF, Gur RC, Johannes B. Cognition test battery performance is associated with simulated 6df spacecraft docking performance. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(11):861867.
7 citations
TL;DR: Performance on both Cognition and WinSCAT decreased with age but improved with repeated administration due to practice effects, and men had higher scores than women on tasks that required vigilant attention, spatial reasoning, and risk-taking behaviors.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Cognition is a neurocognitive test battery created at the University of Pennsylvania and adapted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It comprises 10 neurocognitive tests that examine multiple domains, and has been validated in a normative sample of STEM-educated adults and compared to NASA's WinSCAT battery.METHODS: The purpose of this study was to follow the original sample to assess Cognition and WinSCAT's test-retest reliability and age, sex, and test-retest interval effects on performance.RESULTS: Performance on both Cognition and WinSCAT decreased with age but improved with repeated administration due to practice effects, and men had higher scores than women on tasks that required vigilant attention, spatial reasoning, and risk-taking behaviors. Assessment of test-retest reliability showed intraclass coefficients for efficiency ranging from 0.417 to 0.810, reflecting the broad nature of constructs assessed by Cognition.DISCUSSION: Results largely matched predictions, with some counter-intuitive results for test-retest reliability interval.Lee G, Moore TM, Basner M, Nasrini J, Roalf DR, Ruparel K, Port AM, Dinges DF, Gur RC. Age, sex, and repeated measures effects on NASA's "Cognition" Test Battery in STEM educated adults. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(1):18-25.
6 citations
TL;DR: This study on short-term positional changes on cognitive performance suggests that performing Cognition in the supine or −12° HDT position on a tablet is associated with small decreases in accuracy and, if practice effects are taken into account, potentially also speed, but with no relevant differences between positions.
TL;DR: Contrary to the hypothesis, executive function returned first and electroencephalographic analyses revealed that frontal cortical dynamics recovered faster than posterior cortical dynamics in the post-anesthetic period.
Abstract: Understanding how consciousness and cognitive function return after a major perturbation is important clinically and neurobiologically. To address this question, we conducted a three-center study of 30 healthy humans receiving general anesthesia at clinically relevant doses for three hours. We administered a pre- and post-anesthetic battery of neurocognitive tests, recorded continuous electroencephalography to assess cortical dynamics, and monitored sleep-wake activity before and following anesthetic exposure. We hypothesized that cognitive reconstitution would be a process that evolved over time in the following sequence: attention, complex scanning and tracking, working memory, and executive function. Contrary to our hypothesis, executive function returned first and electroencephalographic analyses revealed that frontal cortical dynamics recovered faster than posterior cortical dynamics. Furthermore, actigraphy indicated normal sleep-wake patterns in the post-anesthetic period. These recovery patterns of higher cognitive function and arousal states suggest that the healthy human brain is resilient to the effects of deep general anesthesia.
TL;DR: A retrospective EEG analysis of data from 3 independent research studies investigated if R / L coefficient decreases in pure models of sleep deprivation, restriction or noise exposure during sleep in healthy subjects.
Abstract:
The Odds-Ratio-Product (ORP) is a highly-validated continuous index of sleep depth (range 0=deep sleep; 2.5=full wakefulness). ORP values fluctuate within this range as sleep state changes between wake and different sleep stages. In healthy non-sleep deprived adults, intra-class correlation coefficient of concurrent right vs. left ORP values (R / L coefficient) is typically >0.80. In a recent study R / L coefficient was markedly reduced in many critically-ill patients and these patients failed to be weaned from mechanical ventilation. Given the high prevalence of sleep loss in such patients we hypothesized that reduction in R/L coefficient might result from sleep loss. This retrospective EEG analysis of data from 3 independent research studies investigated if R / L coefficient decreases in pure models of sleep deprivation, restriction or noise exposure during sleep in healthy subjects.
Polysomnograms were obtained from three studies: A) 200 subjects who underwent 36 hours of total sleep deprivation; B) 21 subjects who underwent 4 consecutive nights of sleep restriction (5 hrs. / night); C) 72 subjects who were exposed to intermittent traffic noise events with maximum sound pressure levels ranging from 45–65 dB(A) for 10 consecutive nights. For study A, R / L coefficient was calculated from pre- and post-deprivation sleep studies and the two values were compared. For study B, coefficient was calculated at baseline and in each restriction night. For study C, the coefficient was calculated in each of the 10 exposure nights and the slope of the change was calculated.
In study A, the coefficient decreased from 0.82±0.12 at baseline to 0.74±0.16 after sleep deprivation (p < 0.0001). In study B, the coefficient decreased from 0.83±0.11 at baseline to 0.75±0.15 on the 4th restriction night (p < 0.01). In study C, coefficient decreased at a rate of 0.003±0.001 per exposure night (p < 0.001).
The correlation between sleep depth in the right and left hemispheres deteriorates following sleep deprivation, restriction or noise-induced sleep fragmentation.
NIH P50 HL060287