ESA’s “BRAIN DTI” experiment team awarded with Compelling Results award

ESA’s BRAIN DTI experiment, assessing how the brain adapts to spaceflight making use of MRI brain scans, has been honoured with the Compelling Results Award in Human Health in Space at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference (ISSRD), held at the end of July in Seattle, USA. The science team is led by Prof. dr. Floris Wuyts from the University of Antwerp in Belgium and consists of a consortium of several European and international investigators.

The experiment is currently running on ISS crew and also has (planned) activities on several ESA ground-based analogues. In particular, it assesses functional and structural changes to the brain after spaceflight. Alterations to the different brain tissues have been found, some still visible also 6 months after returning from space. Further research is needed to delineate the clinical significance of these brain changes on crew health and performance.