Scientists' brains shrink after an Antarctic expedition

According to Science News, a research team of 8 scientists, researchers and a chef came to live and work at Germany's Neumayer III Research Station for 14 months.

"At first, the team found it quite interesting to see the white desert, but then everything . that's just that," physiologist Alexander Stahn (Berlin Medical University) said. .

During the 14-month period, the research team experienced a prolonged darkness of winter in the polar region, with the lowest temperature being about -50 degrees Celsius. Therefore, evacuation is not possible.

Germany's Neumayer III research station in Antarctica.(Photo: ALEXANDER STAHN).

Stahn said that social isolation, monotonous environment is an experience that space explorers can experience while on a long-term mission. He himself is interested in research on the effects of exploration on the brain.

Their June animal studies showed that similar conditions could be harmful to the hippocampus - the brain region that plays an important role in memory and navigation.

Stahn, for example, said that rats living with friends or living in a rich environment will be easier to train and learn faster than others living alone in cages. However, whether this is true for humans is still a mystery.

At Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (USA), Stahn and his colleagues took magnetic resonance images to record brain images of members of the research team before coming to the research area and after leave.

The results reported in the British Medical Journal on December 4 showed that, compared to a person of the same gender and age but not having to spend 14 months in Antarctica, the area of ​​the hippocampus of each city team members fell 7%.

Stahn said that although walruses are very vulnerable to stressors such as isolation, they are also sensitive to the stimuli that come from a life filled with social interaction and a variety of scenes. agency to explore. Therefore, this researcher expressed confidence that this change is reversible.