> Most notably, cognitive speed decreased for all tests except for the DSST, and accuracy decreased for all domains except for spatial orientation postflight. TW’s cognitive efficiency (a combination of speed and accuracy across cognitive domains) was similar pre- and inflight relative to HR but was significantly lower postflight (P = 0.0016, Student’s t test). This postflight decline in cognitive performance persisted up to 6 months postflight in both speed and accuracy domains (Fig. 10C).<p>This is terrifying to me. I hadn't heard of spaceflight (or the return from it) affecting cognitive function before, but they don't seem to be making it a major issue here - even after it persisted six months later. Does anyone have older sources showing the same thing? I would especially be interested in studies showing the effect over multiple flights and returns to Earth.
Interesting that telomere length increased by 14% during flight! And, it can’t be related to a healthy lifestyle since they got shorter within 48hrs back on earth?<p><i>Notably, telomere length shortened rapidly upon TW’s return to Earth, within ~48 hours [FD340 ambient return to R+0 (R+ days post return); fig. S6B] and stabilized to near preflight averages within months.</i>
I'm impressed by the paper's 16 co-first authors and 13 co-last corresponding authors. While something like this might be more routine in a field like physics, it's a good look for biology and I hope the trend of sharing credit continues.
> [S]patial orientation and motor praxis accuracy increased...cognitive speed decreased.<p>It's too bad they didn't measure if TW's become empathic vs. HR. I guess we'll never know how well he's at piloting giant robots.
It's interesting that there's no mention of sperm count.<p>I mean, given that the US government funded studies where state prisoners in Oregon and Washington sat on X-ray machines. After tracking the time course of sperm-count recovery, prisoners' testicles were typically removed. This was back in the 60s, in support of the space program.<p><a href="https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/achre/commeet/meet8/brief8/tab_e/br8e2.html" rel="nofollow">https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/achre/commeet/meet8/...</a>