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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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Increasing Cognitive Ability/Reserve Using Software – Pilot (ICARUS-Pilot)

Background: This research study was competitively awarded under the 2022 JSC Innovation Charge Account (ICA) program administered by NASA Johnson Space Center’s Joint Technology Working Group. Study period of performance was May through September 2022, with a maximum allowed procurement budget of $10K. The study sought to quantify and assess the potential benefit of using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) cognitive training software to improve cognitive performance in an astronaut-like terrestrial population. Methods: Five volunteer research participants were recruited from the JSC employee population to mimic certain demographic characteristics of the NASA astronaut population (age, education/discipline). Participant cognitive performance was assessed before and after executing eighteen sessions of remote cognitive training executed nominally three times per week using six exercises within an adaptive app-based COTS software package (BrainHQ, Posit Science) on study-provided tablets. Pre- and post-training cognitive performance was measured using internal assessments in BrainHQ as well as Cognition Test Battery (CTB) version ISS B01 v3 (3.0.9-201710021500), an independent software test developed specifically for NASA and used currently in research studies on astronauts. BrainHQ exercises were posited to map well or partially to several CTB sub-tests. Participants provided feedback on their study experience formally via semi-structured interview at the conclusion of testing and informally throughout the study if they encountered issues. Results: The enrolled ICARUS-Pilot study participants generally matched Artemis crew demographic characteristics. Four of five participants have completed study training and assessment activities as of the writing of this abstract. These test participants complied well with desired training session frequency and duration yielding an average cumulative active training duration of 15 hours over an average of 45 days; participants showed 78% average improvement in metric performance for the six trained exercises, with an associated overall 33%ile ranking increase against performance of the entire BrainHQ subscribing population for internal pre/post assessment, agreeing with post-study survey self-reported performance increases. CTB overall feedback scoring, not corrected for learning effects, showed an average of 19% performance improvement across its 10 performance measures over the training period for the completed participants. Detailed analyses will be conducted once participant data collection for the study is complete and the resulting dataset is fully populated. Discussion: These preliminary results provide a positive trend for the effectiveness of the training approach, but further analysis will be needed to establish significance, investigate far transfer, and suggest the needed participant pool size for subsequent efforts to achieve statistically significant outcomes given similar results. The pilot study has already been helpful by allowing the study team to learn a great deal about the capabilities and limitations of the COTS software package that will be reflected in future proposals along with revised timelines for study execution and test participant management. From participant feedback, one common thread regarding the COTS training was that it felt overly repetitive – future proposals should reassess overall training duration, available levels for each trained exercise, and the behavior of the BrainHQ internal scheduler in determining which exercises should be trained and for how long. If the final analysis of this feasibility study ultimately supports it, the study team will recommend further investigation to fully evaluate this potential countermeasure and optimize its implementation. Future proposals would cite this feasibility study’s outcome and would seek to refine the training protocol and obtain statistically significant results for cognitive performance increases as well as retention data.

cognitive training↗
NASA NTRS2023

Electronic Nose Development and Preliminary Human Breath Testing for Rapid, Non-Invasive COVID-19 Detection

We adapted an existing, spaceflight-proven, robust “electronic nose” (E-Nose) that uses an array of electrical resistivity-based nanosensors mimicking aspects of mammalian olfaction to conduct on-site, rapid screening for COVID-19 infection by measuring the pattern of sensor responses to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled human breath. We built and tested multiple copies of a hand-held prototype E-Nose sensor system, composed of 64 chemically sensitive nanomaterial sensing elements tailored to COVID-19 VOC detection; data acquisition electronics; a smart tablet with software (App) for sensor control, data acquisition and display; and a sampling fixture to capture exhaled breath samples and deliver them to the sensor array inside the E-Nose. The sensing elements detect the combination of VOCs typical in breath at parts-per-billion (ppb) levels, with repeatability of 0.02% and reproducibility of 1.2%; the measurement electronics in the E-Nose provide measurement accuracy and signal-to-noise ratios comparable to benchtop instrumentation. Preliminary clinical testing at Stanford Medicine with 63 participants, their COVID-19-positive or COVID-19-negative status determined by concomitant RT-PCR, discriminated between these two categories of human breath with a 79% correct identification rate using “leave-one-out” training-and-analysis methods. Analyzing the E-Nose response in conjunction with body temperature and other non-invasive symptom screening using advanced machine learning methods, with a much larger database of responses from a wider swath of the population, is expected to provide more accurate on-the-spot answers. Additional clinical testing, design refinement, and a mass manufacturing approach are the main steps toward deploying this technology to rapidly screen for active infection in clinics and hospitals, public and commercial venues, or at home.

COVID-19↗
NASA NTRS2024

Evaluation of Intranasal Scopolamine for the Prevention of Wave Motion Induced Motion Sickness While Maintaining Performance on Operationally Relevant Tasks

Motion sickness represents one of the greatest clinical challenges impacting crew activities during and following g-transitions. Our overall goal is to characterize the effectiveness of motion sickness countermeasures during controlled laboratory experiments using capsule wave motion simulation and during field testing in operational environments. This laboratory study focused on prevention of motion sickness using intranasal scopolamine using a double-blinded repeated measures design in 30 subjects (19M, 11F). Intranasal scopolamine was provided by Defender Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (DPI-386 Nasal Gel, referred to as Inscop) self-administered by a nasal pump (Aptar Pharma) that delivers 0.4 mg dose (0.2 mg / nostril). During each session, subjects were exposed to complex wave motion on a six degree-of-freedom platform that included pitch, roll and heave at provocative stimulus frequencies (0.1-0.25 Hz) while seated in an illuminated cabin deprived of external visual cues. Motion sickness symptoms were compared across treatment and placebo control sessions counterbalanced across subjects and separated by at least one week. The time-to-motion sickness endpoint was based on severe malaise, defined as symptom score of ≥8 points using the Pensacola Diagnostic Index [1]. The bioavailability of scopolamine for each session was estimated from plasma concentrations obtained every 15 min[2]. Side effects during the treatment session were minimal, and performance was not impaired on a test battery including motion perception tracking, tablet-based eye-hand coordination and psychomotor vigilance testing. The plasma concentration remained near-peak levels throughout the 45 min motion sickness testing for most subjects. The percentile ranking on the Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire [MSSQ, 3]was moderately correlated with the motion sickness time-to-endpoint during the placebo control session (rho = –0.3, p=0.056). Seventeen subjects did not reach an endpoint during their placebo session and were eliminated from subsequent analysis. Another subject was excluded due to insufficient plasma concentration during the treatment session. For the remaining 12 subjects, the change in time-to-motion sickness endpoint between placebo and treatment sessions was moderately correlated with plasma concentration (rho =0.48, p = 0.056), improving on average 4.4 ± 18.4 min, mean ± std with Inscop versus placebo. Our results are consistent with previous findings that intranasal delivery of scopolamine can be effective at reducing motion sickness symptoms with minimal cognitive or sedative side effects. Future work is needed to optimize the delivery of Inscop for rescue (treatment) of symptoms following g-transitions as one of the key advantages of this formulation is self-administration in a suited environment. We will also explore how the combination of Inscop with non-pharmaceutical sensory aids, e.g., vibrotactile feedback of Earth vertical, may further mitigate motion sickness and improve task performance.

S J Wood↗
NASA NTRS2001

Novel method to assess gastric emptying in humans: the Pellet Gastric Emptying Test

To further validate the Pellet Gastric Emptying Test (PGET) as a marker of gastric emptying, a randomized, four-way crossover study was conducted with 12 healthy subjects. The study consisted of oral co-administration of enteric coated caffeine (CAFF) and acetaminophen (APAP) pellets in four treatment phases: Same Size (100 kcal), Fasted, Small Liquid Meal (100 kcal), and Standard Meal (847 kcal). The time of first appearance of measurable drug marker in plasma, t(initial), was taken as the emptying time for the markers. Co-administration of same size enteric coated pellets of CAFF and APAP (0.7 mm in diameter) revealed no statistically significant differences in t(initial) values indicating that emptying was dependent only on size and not on chemical make-up of the pellets. Co-administration of different size pellets indicated that the smaller 0.7-mm diameter (CAFF) pellets were emptied and absorbed significantly earlier than the larger 3.6-mm diameter (APAP) pellets with both the Small Liquid Meal (by 35 min) and the Standard Meal (by 33 min) (P<0.05). The differences in emptying of the pellets were not significant in the Fasted Phase. The results suggest that the pellet gastric emptying test could prove useful in monitoring changes in transit times in the fasted and fed states and their impact on drug absorption.

NASA Discipline Regulatory Physiology↗