Cognitive Performance During Confinement and Sleep Restriction in NASA's Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA)

Jad Nasrini, Emanuel Hermosillo, David F Dinges, Tyler M Moore, Ruben C Gur, Mathias Basner, Jad Nasrini, Emanuel Hermosillo, David F Dinges, Tyler M Moore, Ruben C Gur, Mathias Basner

Abstract

Maintaining optimal cognitive performance in astronauts during spaceflight is critical to crewmember safety and mission success. To investigate the combined effects of confinement, isolation, and sleep deprivation on cognitive performance during spaceflight, we administered the computerized neurobehavioral test battery "Cognition" to crew members of simulated spaceflight missions as part of NASA's ground-based Human Exploration Research Analog project. Cognition was administered to N = 32 astronaut-like subjects in four 1-week missions (campaign 1) and four 2 weeks missions (campaign 2), with four crewmembers per mission. In both campaigns, subjects performed significantly faster on Cognition tasks across time in mission without sacrificing accuracy, which is indicative of a learning effect. On an alertness and affect survey, subjects self-reported significant improvement in several affective domains with time in mission. During the sleep restriction challenge, subjects in campaign 1 were significantly less accurate on a facial emotion identification task during a night of partial sleep restriction. Subjects in campaign 2 were significantly slower and less accurate on psychomotor vigilance, and slower on cognitive throughput and motor praxis tasks during a night of total sleep deprivation. On the survey, subjects reported significantly worsening mood during the sleep loss challenge on several affective domains. These findings suggest that confinement and relative isolation of up to 2 weeks in this environment do not induce a significant negative impact on cognitive performance in any of the domains examined by Cognition, although the concurrent practice effect may have masked some of the mission's effects. Conversely, a night of total sleep deprivation significantly decreased psychomotor vigilance and cognitive throughput performance in astronaut-like subjects. This underscores the importance of using cognitive tests designed specifically for the astronaut population, and that survey a range of cognitive domains to detect the differential effects of the wide range of stressors common to the spaceflight environment.

Keywords: NASA; cognition; confinement; performance; sleep deprivation; spaceflight; spaceflight analog.

Copyright © 2020 Nasrini, Hermosillo, Dinges, Moore, Gur and Basner.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Sleep deprivation/restriction implementation across HERA campaigns 1 and 2. Each line represents a full mission day, with mission day number denoted to the left. Dark blue areas denote scheduled sleep opportunity. Light blue area in C1 MD4 denotes the range of sleep opportunity times due to variation in sleep schedule across missions in campaign 1. Asterisks denote average time of administration of the Cognition test battery across missions. MD, Mission Day; BL, Baseline; SD (1/2), Sleep Deprivation; SR, Sleep Restriction; REC, Recovery.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Z-transformed standard speed and accuracy metrics from the 10 tests in the Cognition battery over time in mission across both campaigns at HERA. Circles refer to the mean score across subjects from both campaigns for each trial number. Dashed blue lines show the 95% CI range around each mean point. Solid red lines represent mixed effects linear models fit to the data for each variable. β refers to the linear slope of the regression model (i.e., change in z-score per trial). Asterisks refer to significance levels after adjusting for multiple testing with the false discovery rate method with p-values referring to H0: regression line slope = 0. (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001).
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Raw (untransformed) survey response scores from the surveys administered in either campaign 1 (C1) or campaign 2 (C2) at HERA. Circles refer to the mean score across subjects from either campaign for each trial number. Dashed blue lines show the 95% CI range around each mean point. Solid red lines represent mixed effects linear models fit to the data within each question. β refers to the linear slope of the regression model (i.e., change in raw score per trial). Asterisks refer to significance levels after adjusting for multiple testing with the false discovery rate method with p-values referring to H0: regression line slope = 0. (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Raw (untransformed) scores across sleep deprivation phases in campaign 1 of HERA on key speed and accuracy metrics of the Cognition battery. Asterisks in the sub-plot title refer to type-III significance levels of sleep deprivation as a main effect after adjusting for multiple testing with the false discovery rate method (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001). In plots with a significant omnibus effect, data shaded in gray were significantly different from baseline (BL) in a post hoc t-test.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Raw (untransformed) scores across sleep deprivation phases in campaign 2 of HERA on key speed and accuracy metrics of the Cognition battery. Asterisks refer to type-III significance levels of sleep deprivation as a main effect after adjusting for multiple testing with the false discovery rate method (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001). In plots with a significant omnibus effect, data shaded in gray were significantly different from baseline (BL) in a post hoc t-test.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Raw (untransformed) scores from the alertness and affect surveys across sleep deprivation phases in campaign 1 (C1) and campaign 2 (C2) of HERA. Asterisks refer to type-III significance levels of sleep deprivation as a main effect after adjusting for multiple testing with the false discovery rate (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001). In plots with a significant omnibus effect, data shaded in gray were significantly different from baseline (BL) in a post hoc t-test.

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