Eye-Head Coordination in 31 Space Shuttle Astronauts during Visual Target Acquisition

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 14283 - 8
• Main Authors: Reschke, Millard F, Kolev, Ognyan I, Clément, Gilles
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 27.10.2017; Nature Publishing Group UK
• Subjects: Adult; Astronauts; Eye; Eye Movement Measurements; Eye Movements; Female; Flight; Head; Head Movements; Headspace; Humans; Landing behavior; Latency; Male; Middle Aged; Motor Skills; Photic Stimulation; Pilots; Saccadic eye movements; Space Flight; Space shuttle; Time Factors
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-14752-8

Between 1989 and 1995, NASA evaluated how increases in flight duration of up to 17 days affected the health and performance of Space Shuttle astronauts. Thirty-one Space Shuttle pilots participating in 17 space missions were tested at 3 different times before flight and 3 different times after flight, starting within a few hours of return to Earth. The astronauts moved their head and eyes as quickly as possible from the central fixation point to a specified target located 20°, 30°, or 60° off center. Eye movements were measured with electro-oculography (EOG). Head movements were measured with a triaxial rate sensor system mounted on a headband. The mean time to visually acquire the targets immediately after landing was 7-10% (30-34 ms) slower than mean preflight values, but results returned to baseline after 48 hours. This increase in gaze latency was due to a decrease in velocity and amplitude of both the eye saccade and head movement toward the target. Results were similar after all space missions, regardless of length.