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Related Experiment Videos

Gastrointestinal motility in space motion sickness.

W E Thornton1, B J Linder, T P Moore

  • 1Astronaut Office, NASA/Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 77058.

Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine
|September 1, 1987
PubMed
Summary

Gastrointestinal symptoms differ in space motion sickness (SMS). Reduced bowel sounds indicate an ileus, a reliable indicator for SMS, unlike ordinary motion sickness.

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Area of Science:

  • Space medicine
  • Gastroenterology
  • Human physiology

Background:

  • Space motion sickness (SMS) presents unique gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms distinct from terrestrial motion sickness (MS).
  • Vomiting in SMS is typically sudden, infrequent, and lacks preceding nausea.
  • Absence of inflight bowel sounds is a notable characteristic of SMS.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the differences in GI motility, specifically bowel sounds, between individuals experiencing SMS and those unaffected.
  • To identify reliable indicators for diagnosing and understanding SMS.

Main Methods:

  • Ambulatory recordings of bowel sounds were collected from 17 subjects pre- and inflight.
  • Subjects included individuals affected by SMS and those unaffected.
Keywords:
NASA Center JSCNASA Discipline Neuroscience

Related Experiment Videos

  • Bowel sound activity was analyzed to measure gastrointestinal motility.

    • Main Results:

    • Individuals affected by SMS exhibited sharply reduced bowel sounds inflight.
    • Subjects unaffected by SMS showed increased or moderately reduced bowel sounds.
    • The absence of bowel sounds correlated with SMS, while their presence indicated recovery or lack of susceptibility.

    Conclusions:

    • Reduced bowel sounds, indicative of an ileus, appear to be a consistent and reliable indicator of SMS.
    • The mechanism of vomiting in SMS may be secondary to this ileus, contrasting with the direct vestibular trigger in ordinary MS.
    • Monitoring bowel sounds is a valuable technique for assessing motility during spaceflight and identifying SMS.