Original title: humans may become stupid on Mars. Animal experiments show that radiation or changes hippocampal neurons
Science and technology daily, Beijing, August 6 - according to a report on the website of Newsweek on the 5th, American scientists said that the research on mice living in a simulated deep space environment showed that sending humans to Mars may bring cognitive and memory problems to astronauts, so that they can't deal with accidents well.
Researchers from the University of California Irvine and Stanford University exposed the experimental rats to low-dose neutron and photon radiation for 6 months. They set the dose to 18 centigrays, and the radiation dose increased at the rate of 1 milligy / day during the study. The results show that this radiation seems to change the working mode of neurons in the hippocampus (mainly responsible for the storage, conversion and orientation of long-term memory) and the nerve pulses in the neural pathways of hippocampus and cortex. More importantly, behavioral tests showed that these mice had problems in learning and memory, and seemed to show more pain and anxiety.
The research team believes that the 'spectrum of behavioral defects' they see in mice will obviously damage the ability of astronauts to make them unable to respond quickly, appropriately and effectively to unexpected situations during the Mars mission.
The researchers explained that it was difficult to replicate and study the effects of deep space radiation before, but now they use new neutron irradiation equipment to simulate the real low-dose radiation in deep space. " In the long run, the nature of the radiation environment in space will not prevent us from going to Mars, but it may be the biggest obstacle that mankind must remove to go beyond the earth's orbit and into deeper space. "
Francis middot, Professor, Department of health physics and Diagnostic Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Kuchinota, who was not involved in the study, was skeptical of these findings and thought they might be 'misleading'.
Kuchinota explained to Newsweek that the radiation used in the study was not neutrons in space, and the radiation dose exceeded the exposure limit set by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - nine times the exposure limit for women and four times the exposure limit for elderly men. In addition, he questioned the researchers' use of a mouse known to be sensitive to cognitive changes.
It takes two years to travel to Mars in a high radiation environment. Jane middot, director general of the European Space Agency; Werner commented: "so far, we have not developed a spacecraft in which human beings can survive."