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One serious hazard for pilots is when your eyes, your body and the seat of your pants
are telling you something completely different than what the plan is telling you. I mean,
you can get thrown off. Especially, when you need to make a crucial decision, like when
you're landing. Can we train the mind and body to work together to handle these intense
situations. Maybe Doctor Scott Wood can tell us.
Come on in. Doctor, how are you doing? Good to see you. So tell me what do you do here
to keep these astronauts cool? We are just getting ready to start a study.
Why don't I show you? Let's go! What do we have her?
What we have is a motion simulator that we have used with pilots and some of our returning
astronauts. So, it's creating some of those confusing, challenging, sensory conditions
that pilots experience. What we are really excited about is the new sensory aids that
we have been looking at. Actually these have been developed through some research in the
Navy. The point is when you are in these challenging situations, it's not that we don't have enough
information for the pilot in the displays; the problem is grabbing their attention, having
them pay attention to it. That's the point of these. These are small little tactors.
These are small little pager motors and what they do is they vibrate.
So wait, let me clarify something. These are sensors. So when it's strapped on the body,
if the pilot has to go right then they feel like a vibration on the right side of their
body. That is correct. They are feedback. It is
sort of like a tap on the shoulder to get their attention to let them know which direction
they need to go That's very cool. You said you have Julie
helping us out today. Yes, Julie is going to wear these and get
in our motion simulator.
You are braver than I am that's for sure
Ok Julie, now we are going to try that with the tactor feedback.
So what are you having her do doc. We are having her control her position so
as the computer moves her chair off axis, she is trying to keep herself centered. Similar
to a pilot trying to keep their aircraft hovering in the same position.
I am so glad, that's not me.
Ever notice that any time you are thrown off balance, the first thing you want to do is
to get some solid footing. Well, your feet know where to go because you know which way
is up and you know which way is down. You can do that because of something called the
vestibular system. Now that's the system that sends signals from the inner ears, to eyes
to the muscles to keep us upright. Most of the time the vestibular system does its thing
without us ever having to consciously think about it.
Guess what? In space, in the free fall of microgravity, there is no up and there is
no down. That throws the vestibular system way off. In fact, it makes some people physically
ill. That's a little something the folks at NASA call space motion sickness. Researchers
think, with a little training, astronauts can actually use their minds to overcome their
bodies' desire to, well you know. It's true. Space motion sickness causes problems
but, NASA is now working on additional training for astronauts before they fly and this is
where that will happen. This is Deborah Harm and she is working on
ways to prevent motion sickness. How are you? Good. How are you?
Good to see you. My pleasure. What do you call this?
Its official name is DOME which is an acronym for Device for Orientation in Motion Environments
but most people just look at is a big virtual reality training system. We're getting ready
to test someone. Would you like to come in and see?
Sure let's check it out. God I hope I don't get sick. Wow this is neat.
Full immersion virtual environment. Totally! When does space sickness often occur?
On the way to space or throughout the mission. It does not occur throughout the mission.
The biggest time for space motion sickness is the first 24 to 72 hours on orbit and then
again upon return from spaceflight. So anytime you change the gravity conditions there is
likely to be some motion sickness. Guess we, can we fire this up?
It's ready to go. We have to just show how to use the space ball and she can fly through
the station. Well while you show her, I'm walking out.
You guys do what you got to do. Deborah that was awesome. Thank you so much
for everything.
You're welcome. It was my pleasure. Talk about mind over matter.
So we know our vestibular system is what keeps us upright and balance here on earth. And
then going into space completely throws it out of whack. But did you know, when you return
from space your vestibular system stays out of whack for up to few weeks? We can't have
astronauts stumbling all over the place. So guys like Dr. Jacob Blumberg have devised
training techniques to help astronauts readjust back to earth. How are you doing Dr?
How are you? Good, Good to see you. Why do astronauts have
such a hard time re-adapting to earth? The human brain is remarkably adaptable and
it adapts to zero g in space. The downside to that is when you return back to earth you
need to re-adapt to earth environment and that can even take up to several weeks at
a time
Wow! So Dr. Tell me exactly what is going on here?
During this training, subjects walk on the treadmill and while they are walking on the
treadmill, you can see that the visual scene is moving up and down and the walking surface
moves up and down. What this provides is a balance challenge while you're walking. It
trains the brain now to become more adaptable to deal with some of these challenges. So
you get better at dealing with it over time. This is great for astronauts. What about earth
applications.
Falling is a big risk factor for older adults so we have been training some of the elder
subjects to become more adaptable so we think it will prevent them from falling in the future.
So we see some really wide spread applications for this type of training.
Dr. this has given my brain and body a workout. Thank you for everything.