Otoconia Structure After Short- and Long-Duration Exposure to Altered Gravity

Vertebrates use weight-lending otoconia in the inner ear otolith organs to enable detection of their translation during self or imposed movements and a change in their orientation with respect to gravity. In spaceflight, otoconia are near weightless. It has been hypothesized that otoconia undergo structural remodeling after exposure to weightlessness to restore normal sensation. A structural remodeling is reasoned to occur for hypergravity but in the opposite sense. We explored these hypotheses in several strains of mice within a Biospecimen Sharing Program in separate space- and ground-based projects. Mice were housed 90 days on the International Space Station, 13 days on two Shuttle Orbiter missions, or exposed to 90 days of hindlimb unloading or net 2.38 g via centrifugation. Corresponding flight habitat and standard cage vivarium controls were used. Utricular otoliths were visually analyzed using scanning electron microscopy and in selected samples before and after focused ion beam (FIB) milling. Results suggest a possible mass addition to the otoconia outer shell might occur after exposure to longer-duration spaceflight, but not short ones or hindlimb unloading. A destructive process is clearly seen after centrifugation: an ablation or thinning of the outer shell and cavitation of the inner core. This study provides a purely descriptive account of otoconia remodeling after exposures to altered gravity. The mechanism(s) underlying these processes must be identified and quantitatively validated to develop countermeasures to altered gravity levels during exploration missions.