Longitudinal brain-age predictions comprising long-duration spaceflight missions.
Authors
Affiliations (16)
Affiliations (16)
- Institute for Neuroradiology, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany. [email protected].
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany. [email protected].
- Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain & Behaviour (INM-7), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
- Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
- Lab for Equilibrium Investigations and Aerospace, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
- Imec/Vision Lab, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
- SSC RF-Institute of Biomedical Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
- Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany.
- Laboratory for Cognitive Research, HSE University, Moscow, Russia.
- Radiology Department, Federal Center of Treatment and Rehabilitation, Moscow, Russia.
- Radiology Department at the Medical Research and Educational Center, Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), Moscow, Russia.
- Department of Translational Neurosciences-ENT, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
- Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration, European Space Agency (ESA), Noordwijk, Netherlands.
- Institute for Neuroradiology, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
- German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
Abstract
Our study investigates the effects of long-duration spaceflight on brain aging in spacefarers using structural MRI and machine learning models. Pre-, post-, and follow-up scans of ROS cosmonauts ESA astronauts, and matched Earth-bounding controls were analyzed. We found a considerable difference between the spacefareres and the control group, especially in the ESA cohorts (ß = 0.63). In the ROS cohorts, we observed a difference between the pre- and post-flight scans. A post-hoc analysis revealed that the pre-flight brain age delta was 0.842 years less than the immediate post-flight brain age delta after long-duration spaceflight. All three machine learning models showed good to excellent intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) between the two consecutive MRI sessions. Our findings suggest that long-duration spaceflight may have an effect on human brain aging as observed from MRI.