LSDA: Experiment - 80NSSC19K1480

EXPERIMENT INFORMATION

Promoting Behavioral Health, Cognitive, Sensorimotor, and Immune Function Using Guided Imagery to Augment Exercise Training in an Isolated and Confined Spaceflight Analog Environment (80NSSC19K1480)

Principal Investigator

+ Simpson, Richard J.

Research Area:

Behavior and performance

Exercise physiology

Species Studied

Scientific Name: Homo sapiens Species: Human

Study Type

+ Flight Analogs Project (FAP)

Description

OBJECTIVES:
Operating in isolated, confined controlled (ICC) and extreme (ICE) environments degrades crew performance and jeopardizes mission success by impacting physical status, psychological symptoms, fatigue, and sensorimotor function. Although countermeasures help reduce the risks, individuals are still susceptible to problems adapting to and operating in ICC/ICE environments. Physical training has had a positive effect on cognitive and immune functions and psychological status. However, increased stress levels have limited individuals’ engagement in physical activity. Therefore, to ensure the efficacy of a physical training countermeasure, strategies need to be developed to ensure crewmembers maintain sufficient levels of training stimuli to provide the protective effects of physical activity while in the presence of increased stress levels when operating in ICC/ICE environments.

The overall hypothesis of this experiment is that structured exercise training performed during an ICC space flight analog will ameliorate stress-induced changes in behavioral health, cognitive, sensorimotor and immune system function. It is further posited that guided imagery will augment exercise on behavioral health, fatigue, cognitive and immune system function will be moderated by/correlated with reductions in biomarkers of stress and improvements/maintenance of central nervous system functioning.

The experiment has the following specific aims:

Determine the effects of an in-flight validated exercise regimen (‘SPRINT’) on behavioral health, fatigue, cognitive, sensorimotor, and immune system function in an ICC space flight analog.
Determine the impact of guided imagery on exercise adherence and positive affective responses to exercise in the ICC space flight analog. Explore the effects of adding guided imagery to the exercise regimen on behavioral health, fatigue, cognitive, sensorimotor and immune system function.
Determine if exercise training, with or without guided imagery, has a positive impact on biomarkers of stress and central nervous system function in the ICC space flight analog and can increase resilience during an acute stress model of sleep deprivation relative to the control group.

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APPROACH:
Specific Aim 1:
Data will be collected across three HERA campaigns which consist of four missions and four participants per campaign (total n=48). HERA missions will be randomized to SPRINT exercise training or control at a 2:1 ratio. The SPRINT group will follow a detailed exercise prescription regimen while the control group will be given exercise training guideline (no structured regimen) and access to exercise equipment. Baseline and endpoint measures will be collected. Measures include neurobehavioral checklist (NBCL), Neurocognitive Testing Battery, Perception-Action Coupling Task (PACT), the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT), the Visuomotor Test Battery (VTB), and NK-cell cytotoxic activity (NKCA) against tumor target cells in vitro.

Specific Aim 2:
The SPRINT experimental group will also receive audio guided imagery (GI) sessions to augment the exercise training component. A GI coach will work with each participant in the GI condition to create nine scripts, one for each aerobic exercise and one for each resistance exercise. Aerobic scripts are approximately 30 minutes long and resistance scripts will correspond to the duration of the activity for each participant. The scripts will be digitally recorded, and participants will be instructed to listen to the recording while completing their exercise routine.

Specific Aim 3:
Daily saliva samples will be collected immediately after waking from all HERA participants early (day 5 to 10), mid (day 20-25), and late (day 40-45) mission. All participants will undergo a sleep deprived night at mission day 40.

RESULTS:

It is anticipated that lower scores of positive adaptations as determined by NBCL, impaired performance on the PVT, lower mood states, and reduced sensorimotor accuracy of judgement as determined by PACT and VTB, particularly toward the latter stages of the mission will be observed. Additionally, NK-cell function is expected to decrease. It is also anticipated that GI will increase affective response during exercise. Thus, GI would be an effective countermeasure to augment exercise motivation, adherence and positive affect during prolonged periods of isolation and confinement. Overall, it is expected that participants assigned to SPRINT will illustrate smaller increases in stress biomarkers.

Keywords

Performance

Behavioral health

Sensorimotor

Cognition

Data Information

Data Availability

Archiving in progress. Data is not yet available for this experiment.

Parameters

Affect

Behavioral risk

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor-1 (BDNF-1)

Calories burned

Central visual recognition accuracy

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Mission/Study Information

Mission	Launch/Start Date	Landing/End Date	Duration
Ground	05/01/2009		In Progress
HERA Campaign 6	10/01/2021		In progress

Additional Information

Co-Investigators

+ Connaboy, Christopher

+ Germain, Anne

+ Gordon, Judith

Managing NASA Center

Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Responsible NASA Representative

Institutional Support

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Proposal Date

08/05/2019

Proposal Source