washington scientists of the university of antwerp and the university of liege have found how the human brain changes and adapts to weightlessness after being in space for 6 months some of the changes turned out to be lasting even after 8 months back on earth raphael liegeois soon to be the third belgian in space acknowledges the importance of the research to prepare the new generation of astronauts for longer missions a child who learns not to drop a glass on the floor or a tennis player predicting the course of an incoming ball to hit it accurately are examples of how the brain incorporates the physical laws of gravity to optimally function on earth astronauts who go to space reside in a weightless environment where the brains rules about gravity are no longer applicable a new study on brain function in cosmonauts has revealed how the brains organization is changed after a sixmonth mission to the international space station iss demonstrating the adaptation that is required to live in weightlessnessthe university of antwerp has been leading this braindti scientific project through the european space agency magnetic resonance imaging mri data were taken from 14 astronaut brains before and several times after their mission to spaceusing a special mri technique the researchers collected the astronauts brain data in a resting condition hence without having them engage in a specific task this restingstate functional mri technique enabled the researchers to investigate the brains default state and to find out whether this changes or not after longduration spaceflightlearning effectin collaboration with the university of liege recent analyses of the brains activity at rest revealed how functional connectivity a marker of how activity in some brain areas is correlated with the activity in others changes in specific regionswe found that connectivity was altered after spaceflight in regions which support the integration of different types of information rather than dealing with only one type each time such as visual auditory or movement information say steven jillings and floris wuyts university of antwerp moreover we found that some of these altered communication patterns were retained throughout 8 months of being back on earth at the same time some brain changes returned to the level of how the areas were functioning before the space missionboth scenarios of changes are plausible retained changes in brain communication may indicate a learning effect while transient changes may indicate more acute adaptation to changed gravity levelsthis dataset is so special as their participants themselves back in 2016 we were historically the first to show how spaceflight may affect brain function on a single cosmonaut some years later we are now in a unique position to investigate the brains of more astronauts several times therefore we are deciphering the potential of the human brain all the more in confidence says dr athena demertzi giga institute university of liege cosupervisor of this this worknew generation of astronautsunderstanding physiological and behavioral changes triggered by weightlessness is key to plan human space