About this Event
THE TALK: The Effects of Spaceflight on the Human Brain and Behavior
Emerging plans for travel to Mars and other deep space destinations make it critical for us to understand how spaceflight affects the human brain and behavior. Moreover, studying adaptation to the microgravity environment provides insight into how the central nervous system responds to an environment for which it has not evolved. I will share findings from my work indicating that the spaceflight environment induces adverse effects on the brain, including intracranial fluid shifts and gray and white matter changes. I will also describe how adaptive processes co-occur with these brain position and intracranial fluid shifts and describe how spaceflight-associated brain changes link to sensorimotor performance.
Dr. Rachael Seidler is a full professor in the departments of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology and Neurology at the University of Florida and is director of the university’s Astraeus Space Institute. She obtained her PhD in 1999 from Arizona State University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Brain Sciences Center at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. Before joining the University of Florida in 2017, Seidler was an assistant, associate, and full professor in the Departments of Psychology and Movement Science at the University of Michigan. Seidler studies co-constructive brain and behavioral changes, particularly in the realms of aging and human spaceflight. She has led several large-scale research projects funded by the NIH (U and R awards), NSF, NASA and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI. Seidler has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts in journals such as Science, Lancet Neurology, and PNAS, with her work cited over 22,000 times. Moreover, she has garnered over $20 million in funding for her research. Her space research focuses on adaptive and dysfunctional changes to the human brain and behavior with space travel.
Event venue & nearby stays
15 SE Osceola Ave, 15 Southeast Osceola Avenue, Ocala, United States
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