NASA Specialized Center of Research (NSCOR) for Evaluating Risk Factors and Biomarkers for Adaptation and Resilience to Spaceflight: Emotional Valence and Social Processes in ICC/ICE Environments

NASAs vision for successful long-duration exploration missions depends on optimizing human performance, adaptability, and resiliency to reduce individual and crew behavioral risks. To date, the major emphasis in optimizing astronauts for their tolerance to prolonged spaceflight has involved human health and performance countermeasures as well as technologies and tools to ensure safety during exploration. However, considerable evidence suggests that there are individual differences among astronauts in their vulnerabilities to the various stressors of spaceflight. The goal of this NASA Specialized Center of Research (NSCOR) is to obtain novel information that will help identify individuals who are resilient to the stressors of prolonged human spaceflight, thereby ensuring successful completion of exploration missions and the preservation of health over the life of the astronaut. This NSCOR project leverages the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) heuristic framework to conduct experimental studies to identify biological domains (molecular, circuitry, physiology) and behavioral domains that relate to individual adaptation and resiliency (as well as behavioral vulnerability) in spaceflight-relevant confined and extreme environments. The NSCOR focuses specifically on differences among astronauts in their tolerance of and adaptability to simulated conditions of prolonged spaceflight that impact behavioral health and performance. The NSCOR will provide novel information on the extent to which behavioral and biological factors can be identified that predict astronauts who can maintain positive mood, proactive social processes, a high level of performance and personal wellbeing, while coping with confinement, meaningless work, limited social support, and living in the extreme environmental conditions of space.