Depression can significantly affect an astronaut’s ability to function effectively and efficiently, and it can jeopardize the success and safety of crew members and the mission itself. Earth-based simulations of the spaceflight environment report depression incidence near 13 percent per person per year, indicating a probability for occurrence during long-term flights such as a 30-month mission to Mars. Dr. Gary E. Strangman and colleagues aim to identify neural biomarkers specific for depression by using noninvasive near-infrared spectroscopy and imaging. The project is also developing lightweight and wearable technologies for near-infrared neuroimaging during spaceflight.
Overview
Objective Detection, Evaluation and Countermeasures for In-Flight Depression
Principal Investigator:
Gary E. Strangman, Ph.D.
Organization:
Harvard - Massachusetts General Hospital
Technical Summary
Psychological stresses, including depression, can significantly disrupt one's ability to function effectively and efficiently, and associated performance deficits can seriously jeopardize space mission success. The incidence of serious depression in Earth-based analogs of the spaceflight environment has been reported as up to 13 percent per person per year. Extrapolating from existing reports of depressive episodes during short-duration spaceflight, depression is thus a probable condition in one or more members of a five-to-seven person crew during a long-duration spaceflight (e.g., a 30-month mission to Mars).
Mission success can be jeopardized by depression either directly, from the potentially life-threatening consequences of lapses in performance, or indirectly, by adding to the workload and stress of other crew members. The likelihood and potentially serious consequences of depression during spaceflight explain why human performance failure due to mood alterations, such as depression, anxiety or other psychiatric and cognitive problems, is a high-priority risk for all mission types (International Space Station, moon, Mars).
Countermeasures are already in place, including medications and psychological consultations with ground crews. However, current in-flight methods to decide whether a countermeasure should be used rely heavily on subjective self-reports. The biological basis of mood disorders suggests that neural biomarkers may provide a more objective method for assessing depression.
Specific Aims
- Identify neural biomarkers sensitive to, and specific for, depression. These measures will be used in evaluating and validating a flight-capable, noninvasive neuroimaging technology-near-infrared neuroimaging (NIN) - for its ability to detect biomarkers of depression and its severity.
- Develop and improve hardware and software for mobile neuroimaging, including the development of ultra lightweight NIN instruments.
- Evaluate the novel hardware for detection of the biomarkers identified in Specific Aim 1. Together, successful completion of these aims will provide a new, mobile neuroimaging technology suitable for detecting biomarkers associated with depression.
Earth Applications
Successful completion of this project would lead to the following Earth-relevant benefits:
- Depression Biomarkers: We seek to identify biomarkers that are suitable for depression diagnosis and for assessing depression severity. If a reliable near-infrared neuroimaging -based biomarker is identified, this would provide initial validation for NIN-based evaluation of depressed individuals. If such brain-based biomarkers can be reliably measured in an office setting, it would provide more objective tracking of depression severity and potentially help to optimize delivery of all types of depression therapies. A NIN system for depression assessment has the further potential to be relatively low cost, thereby facilitating access to such capabilities in broader regions than currently possible, including rural or underserved communities.
- Mobile Neuroimaging: Developing appropriate technologies can enable neuroimaging in mobile environments, including spaceflight analogs and spaceflight itself. Such technologies have the potential to impact a wide range of novel brain monitoring applications on Earth as well, ranging from mobile epilepsy monitoring, to monitoring treatment efficacy via brain-imaging during a doctor’s office visit, to first-responder or battlefield head trauma evaluations. It would also lead to generally more available, less expensive methods for diagnosing, monitoring and treating not only depression, but other psychiatric or cognitive disorders involving alterations in brain function. NIN is of particular promise as a brain-imaging technology as it is sufficiently low cost, robust and portable, so that it can be made readily available in diverse operational environments including urban, rural and remote settings.
This project's funding ended in 2011