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Updated: Oct 4, 2026

Coherence between Brain Cortical Function and Neurocognitive Performance during Changed Gravity Conditions
Published on: May 23, 2011
Activity of the sympathetic-adrenomedullary system in rats after space flight on the Cosmos biosatellites
R Kvetnansky1, M Vigas, R A Tigranyan
1Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.
Abstract:
The indicators of adrenomedullary activity (catecholamine content (CA) and the activity of the catecholamine-synthesizing enzymes tyrosine hydrozylase (TH) and dopamine-beta-hydrozylase (DBH) were measured in the adrenal glands of rats living in a state of weightlessness for 18.5-19.5 days on board the biosatellites COSMOS 936 and COSMOS 1129. None of these indicators was significantly changed by space flight, neither in the group living in a state of weightlessness nor in the group living in a centrifuge on board the spacecraft and exposed to artificial gravity of 1 g (COSMOS 936). Animals exposed after space flight to repeated immobilization stress on Earth showed a significant decrease of adrenal adrenaline and an appreciable increase in adrenal TH activity compared to stressed animals which were not in space. These results suggest that a prolonged state of weightlessness during space flight does not by itself represent an intensive stressful stimulus for the adrenomedullary system but potentiates the response of cosmonauts to stress after return to Earth.
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