DNA damage response and Radiosensitivity of immune cells from subjects undergoing confinement in the NASA Human Exploration Research Analog

空间飞行的心理和社会影响对于成功实现特别是长期飞行任务的目标至关重要。据报道，在太空飞行期间会出现焦虑或抑郁等精神问题。烦躁、疲劳、注意力难以集中和睡眠问题是一些宇航员在使命期间经历的症状。许多研究证实，心理压力不仅影响心理和行为，而且影响身体功能。因此，有必要制定战略，以抵消空间飞行任务期间的有害心理影响。NASA的飞行模拟项目（FAP）利用地面设施进行研究，这些设施提供了类似于探索任务预期的场景和环境。人类探索研究模拟（HERA）是模拟使命探索场景的隔离、封闭和远程条件的模拟。HERA旨在调查团队的表现和合作，对压力的反应，早期抑郁，焦虑和愤怒的迹象及其对人类健康的影响。HERA是一个涉及不同领域专家的合作项目。不仅要测量心理压力的生物标志物，还要测量临床压力的生物标志物，例如肾上腺素。众所周知，应激激素会诱导DNA链断裂，因此，在本项目中，我的任务将是确定DNA链断裂的水平以及从HERA受试者获得的免疫细胞中参与DNA损伤反应的基因表达（在每四次任务之前，期间和之后）。此外，还将评估细胞对离体辐射的敏感性（在每四次飞行任务之前、期间和之后）。

Psychological and sociological effects of space flight are important to successfully achieve the goals of especially long-duration missions. Psychiatric problems such as anxiety or depression have been reported during space flights. Irritability, fatigue, concentration difficulties and sleep problems are symptoms experienced by some astronauts during a mission. Many studies confirm that psychological stress not only influences mind and behavior but also body functions. Therefore it is a need of developing strategies to counteract the detrimental psychological effects during space missions. The NASA Flight Analogs Project (FAP) conducts research utilizing ground-based facilities that provide scenarios and environments analogous to those anticipated for exploration missions. The Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) represents an analog for simulation of isolation, confinement and remote conditions of mission exploration scenarios. HERA aims at investigating team performance and cooperation, reaction to stress, signs of early depression, anxiety and anger and their impact on human health. HERA is a collaborative project involving experts in different fields. Not only psychological but also clinical biomarkers of stress, e.g. adrenaline will be measured. It is known that stress hormones induce DNA strand breaks thus, within this project, my tasks will be to determine the level of DNA strand breaks as well as expression of genes (before, during and after each four Missions) involved in DNA damage response in immune cells obtained from HERA subjects. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the cells to ex vivo radiation (before, during and after each four Missions) will be also assessed.