Informations générales (source: ClinicalTrials.gov)
Interventional
N/A
University Hospital, Caen (Voir sur ClinicalTrials)
février 2014
04 septembre 2025
Parabolic flight is the only ground-based condition in which weightlessness (0G) can be
created long enough for safely testing changes in human perception and behavior. In
addition to the 0G period, parabolic flight generates equal duration periods of 1.8G,
which present another unique opportunity to test the same responses to hypergravity and
back to 1G.
Cognitive function, together with good oculomotor control, eye-hand coordination, and
spatial orientation perception, is a critical subsystem that is used by the CNS in the
control of vehicles and other complex systems in a high-level integrative function.
Evidence from space flight research demonstrates that the function of each of these
subsystems is altered by the transitions in gravito-inertial force levels. These
neuro-vestibular alterations, unfortunately, correspond to mission phases where physical
and cognitive performance are particularly critical for crew safety and mission success.
To date, there is only limited operational evidence that these alterations cause
functional impacts on mission-critical vehicle (or complex system) control capabilities.
However, the true operational risks will be estimable only after the investigators have
filled the knowledge gaps and when the investigators can accurately assess integrated
performance in off-nominal operational settings.
Accurate perception of self-in-space motion and self-motion relative to other objects are
critical to piloting, driving, and remote manipulator operations. Immediately after space
flight, most crewmembers have reported some degree of disorientation/perceptual illusion,
often accompanied by nausea (or other symptoms of motion sickness), and frequently
manifested by lack of coordination, particularly during locomotion. Despite recent,
intensive training, some Shuttle landings were outside of the desired performance
boundaries. Scores indicating neurovestibular dysfunction in returning astronauts
generally correlated with poorer flying performances, including a lower approach and
landing shorter, faster, and harder. An underestimation of distance, coupled to an
overestimation of tilt magnitude or misperception of the type of motion, could be at the
origin of these poorer performances.
This study should confirm that the unloading of the otoliths in weightlessness induces an
alteration in the egocentric reference during space flight. Errors in egocentric
localization might contribute at a higher level to the computation of misleading
world-centered representations, and therefore be partly responsible for illusory
sensations and motion sickness symptoms during space flight, and postural instability and
oscillopsia after returning in a reduced or terrestrial gravitational force level.
Beside their fundamental implications, the results of this study have also practical
implications in the design of man-machine interfaces. Changes in judgment of distance in
microgravity or in reduced gravity affect crew posture and reach, display orientation,
and other visual cues, which should be considered in hardware and operations design.
Etablissements
| Les établissements hors Île-de-France dont les données sont issues de ClinicalTrials.gov Origine et niveau de fiabilité des données | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Umr Ucbn/Inserm U1075 Comete - 14032 - Caen CEDEX - Basse-Normandie - France | Pierre Denise, MD PhD | Contact (sur clinicalTrials) | |||
Critères
Tous
Inclusion Criteria:
- Healthy volunteers (men or women)
- Aged from 21 to 65
- Affiliated to a Social Security system and, for non-French resident, holding a
European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
- Who accepted to take part in the study
- Who have given their written stated consent
- Who has passed a medical examination similar to a standard aviation medical
examination for private pilot aptitude (JAR FCL3 Class 2 medical examination). There
will be no additional test performed for subject selection
- Healthy volunteers (men or women)
- Aged from 21 to 65
- Affiliated to a Social Security system and, for non-French resident, holding a
European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
- Who accepted to take part in the study
- Who have given their written stated consent
- Who has passed a medical examination similar to a standard aviation medical
examination for private pilot aptitude (JAR FCL3 Class 2 medical examination). There
will be no additional test performed for subject selection
- Person who took part in a previous biomedical research protocol, of which exclusion
period is not terminated
- Person with medical history of oculomotor disorders
- Person with medical history of vestibular disorders
- Pregnant women