NASA is to expose squirrel monkeys toward daily radiation doses to assist them understand the effects of long space trips on human being.
Previously the monkeys will be trained to perform various tasks ant it will be tested to see how the exposure affects their performance.
It will be NASAs very first experiment on primates in decades.
If a manned mission to Mars yet takes place, the human pilots will be outside Earth’s protective magnetic field for quite
a few months, unprotected from solar radiation. Little research has been made on this sort of long-term exposure to low down doses of radiation.
Rats and mice have been exposed to this sort of radiation before, however that gives only a clue of what the effects would be on humans.
"Obviously, the closer we get to man, the better." alleged Eleanor Blakely, a biophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The researchers are going to pay particular attention to the effects on the monkeys' central nervous systems and behavior. The monkeys, previously trained to carry out a variety of tasks and it will be tested to see how the exposure affects their performance.
"We realized there was a need for this kind of work" added Jack Bergman, a behavioral pharmacologist at Harvard Medical School's McLean Hospital, Boston.
"There is a long-standing commitment on the part of NASA towards deep space travel and with that commitment comes with a need for knowing what kinds of adverse effects deep space travel may have, what are the risks to astronauts. That is not been well assessed.
The beauty of this is that we can assess at dissimilar time points after exposure, so not simply do we get a sense of rather immediate effects, but then we may look again at longer time points.
"That sort of information just hasn't been available."
After the radiation exposure, the monkeys may look further to a lifetime of being looked after by staff as well as veterinarians at McLean Hospital.
NASA added in their statement that: "McLean Hospital is responsible for the lifetime care of the primates and no further research is planned for them at this time."
The space agency has previously used 17 primates, mostly chimpanzees, to test the effects of launch G-forces as well as microgravity on humans, among other things.
Previously the monkeys will be trained to perform various tasks ant it will be tested to see how the exposure affects their performance.
It will be NASAs very first experiment on primates in decades.
If a manned mission to Mars yet takes place, the human pilots will be outside Earth’s protective magnetic field for quite
a few months, unprotected from solar radiation. Little research has been made on this sort of long-term exposure to low down doses of radiation. Rats and mice have been exposed to this sort of radiation before, however that gives only a clue of what the effects would be on humans.
"Obviously, the closer we get to man, the better." alleged Eleanor Blakely, a biophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The researchers are going to pay particular attention to the effects on the monkeys' central nervous systems and behavior. The monkeys, previously trained to carry out a variety of tasks and it will be tested to see how the exposure affects their performance.
"We realized there was a need for this kind of work" added Jack Bergman, a behavioral pharmacologist at Harvard Medical School's McLean Hospital, Boston.
"There is a long-standing commitment on the part of NASA towards deep space travel and with that commitment comes with a need for knowing what kinds of adverse effects deep space travel may have, what are the risks to astronauts. That is not been well assessed.
The beauty of this is that we can assess at dissimilar time points after exposure, so not simply do we get a sense of rather immediate effects, but then we may look again at longer time points.
"That sort of information just hasn't been available."
After the radiation exposure, the monkeys may look further to a lifetime of being looked after by staff as well as veterinarians at McLean Hospital.
NASA added in their statement that: "McLean Hospital is responsible for the lifetime care of the primates and no further research is planned for them at this time."
The space agency has previously used 17 primates, mostly chimpanzees, to test the effects of launch G-forces as well as microgravity on humans, among other things.
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