Emily Perry, a PhD student here in the School of Psychology,\u00a0is part of an all-women research team which has secured funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) Academy Experiments Programme to explore the impact of non-invasive brain stimulation in spaceflight conditions.<\/p>\n
The team, named V-STARS (Vestibular Stochastic Techniques for Adaptive Responses in Spaceflight), is composed entirely of women \u2013 a significant milestone in a sector where women\u00a0represent\u00a0only 20% of the workforce.\u00a0The team will conduct experiments using the ESA\u2019s Orbital Robotics Lab (ORL) platform, a cutting-edge robotic system that\u00a0can\u00a0create\u00a0a floating sensation to simulate microgravity.\u00a0This project will be the first human experiment ever conducted on the ESA robotic weightlessness platform.<\/p>\n
The project aims to investigate whether galvanic vestibular stimulation \u2013 a type of brain stimulation which works on the brain\u2019s balance (\u201cvestibular\u201d) system \u2013 can help the brain adapt to microgravity. Exposure to microgravity can disrupt this system, causing cognitive and perceptual challenges for astronauts. Accordingly, finding strategies to enhance adaptation to weightlessness has the potential to significantly improve astronaut performance and wellbeing in the future.<\/p>\n
Emily will work with four Birkbeck, University of London students on the project including Helene Grandchamp des Raux, Isabel Risco Navarez, Milena da Silva Baiao, and Maryam Haq who is leading the research. The V-STARS team is supervised by Professor Elisa Raffaella Ferr\u00e8, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Head of the School of Psychology at Birkbeck, and\u00a0Dr Maria Gallagher<\/a>, Lecturer in Cognition and Neuroscience at Kent\u2019s School of Psychology.<\/p>\n On being awarded the funding, Emily said: \u2018It is a great feeling to have been awarded this funding from the ESA and we cannot wait to get started. We hope to find out whether astronauts\u2019 abilities to adapt to weightlessness can be enhanced through non-invasive brain stimulation as this would ultimately improve performance and wellbeing during space missions. It\u2019s really exciting to cross over my psychology expertise into the field of space.\u2019<\/p>\n For more information on the ESA research project please see Birkbeck\u2019s news piece:\u00a0https:\/\/www.bbk.ac.uk\/news\/birkbeck-students-secure-european-space-agency-funding-for-human-spaceflight-research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"