St Petersburg University researchers to assess the risks of neurodegenerative and autoimmune disorders in cosmonauts

The rapid development of the aerospace industry necessitates a particular emphasis on studying the delayed effects of prolonged space flights and pre-flight training on the body of cosmonauts. Currently, many developing countries, including Saudi Arabia, have established their own space programmes. The success of space exploration is largely determined by the quality of preparatory research and training of participants for the effects of space on the human body.

Man will not always stay on Earth; the pursuit of light and space will lead him to penetrate the bounds of the atmosphere, timidly at first, but in the end to conquer the whole of solar space.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

In outer space, a human body is affected not only by weightlessness, which causes redistribution of bodily fluids, and by radiation, which can lead to cell injury and cell death, but also by a number of other factors that change the neuroendocrine-immune parameters of the regulatory systems of the body’s vital functions.

Medical scientists from St Petersburg University will study the impact of both parabolic flights and prolonged space flights on the neuroendocrine-immune regulatory network. This will enable us in the near future to improve the pre-flight training of cosmonauts and to reduce the health risks associated with a long-term stay in outer space.

The Principal Investigator of the project is Associate Professor Leonid Churilov, Head of the Department of Pathology at St Petersburg University. According to Leonid Churilov, in international practice, there are few clinical laboratory data necessary to assess the effects of space on physiological and pathological autoimmunity. Particularly given that the expression of markers for neurodegenerative processes in cosmonauts has been largely understudied.

The project team includes: experts from St Petersburg University and the Kirov Military Medical Academy with the participation of the St Petersburg Research Institute of Phthisiopulmonology and the Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Centre. Scientific research will be carried out by St Petersburg University together with the Nebula Research & Development company and the King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre (Saudi Arabia).

The concept of pre-nosological and premorbid states, that is, situations of extreme stress affecting the body and premorbid conditions associated with overload of the circulatory system of cosmonauts, was introduced by biocyberneticist and biophysicist Roman Baevsky. However, as studies by St Petersburg University experts show, under high stress loads, the neuroendocrine-immune regulatory network can also be functioning on the threshold of illness. A similar state of the immune system was described in his studies by Professor Yehuda Schoenfeld, Head of the Laboratory of the Mosaic of Autoimmunity at St Petersburg University.

Studying the ability of the human brain, immune and endocrine systems to respond to certain factors in space will not only bring great benefits to the physical condition of cosmonauts in space, but also will help us gain valuable insights into the little-studied area of pathological processes that occur in extreme conditions on Earth.

Leonid Churilov, Principal Investigator of the project, Head of the Department of Pathology at St Petersburg University

‘Our experience and expertise and available at St Petersburg University non-invasive methods for the detection of markers for neurodegenerative diseases and for screening the spectrum and intensity of autoimmune disorders directed against central nervous system antigens will enable us to acquire knowledge that will help to provide practical recommendations in future,’ explained Leonid Churilov.

While working on the project, the experts will analyse: the parameters of autoimmunity towards central nervous system and neuroendocrine system antigens; the expression of markers of neurodegenerative pathology; and the functional performance of the autonomic nervous system in different groups. The test subjects will be cosmonauts who have made prolonged space flights or have been in parabolic flight training programmes and civil aviation pilots who have not gone through space training.

Earlier this year, St Petersburg University researchers, together with foreign colleagues, have won a mega-grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. They are to set up a laboratory to investigate the little-studied mechanisms of atherosclerosis and develop new ways to combat it.