Development and Validation of the Cognition Test Battery for Spaceflight
BACKGROUND: Sustained high-level cognitive performance is of paramount importance for the success of space missions, which involve environmental, physiological, and psychological stressors that may affect brain functions. Despite subjective symptom reports of cognitive fluctuations
in spaceflight, the nature of neurobehavioral functioning in space has not been clarified.
METHODS: We developed a computerized cognitive test battery (Cognition) that has sensitivity to multiple cognitive domains and was specifically designed for the high-performing astronaut population. Cognition consists of 15 unique forms of 10 neuropsychological tests that cover a range of cognitive domains, including emotion processing, spatial orientation, and risk decision making. Cognition is based on tests known to engage specific brain regions as evidenced by functional neuroimaging. Here we describe the first normative and acute total sleep deprivation data on the Cognition test battery as well as several efforts underway to establish the validity, sensitivity, feasibility, and acceptability of Cognition.
RESULTS: Practice effects and test-retest variability differed substantially between the 10 Cognition tests, illustrating the importance of normative data that both reflect practice effects and differences in stimulus set difficulty in the population of interest. After one night without sleep, medium to large effect sizes were observed for 3 of the 10 tests addressing vigilant attention (Cohen’s d = 1.00), cognitive throughput (d = 0.68), and abstract reasoning (d = 0.65).
CONCLUSIONS: In addition to providing neuroimaging-based novel information on the effects of spaceflight on a range of cognitive functions, Cognition will facilitate comparing the effects of ground-based analogues to spaceflight, increase consistency across projects, and thus enable meta-analyses.
Basner M, Savitt A, Moore TM, Port AM, McGuire S, Ecker AJ, Nasrini J, Mollicone DJ, Mott CM, McCann T, Dinges DF, Gur RC. Development and validation of the Cognition test battery for spaceflight. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2015; 86(11):942–952.
METHODS: We developed a computerized cognitive test battery (Cognition) that has sensitivity to multiple cognitive domains and was specifically designed for the high-performing astronaut population. Cognition consists of 15 unique forms of 10 neuropsychological tests that cover a range of cognitive domains, including emotion processing, spatial orientation, and risk decision making. Cognition is based on tests known to engage specific brain regions as evidenced by functional neuroimaging. Here we describe the first normative and acute total sleep deprivation data on the Cognition test battery as well as several efforts underway to establish the validity, sensitivity, feasibility, and acceptability of Cognition.
RESULTS: Practice effects and test-retest variability differed substantially between the 10 Cognition tests, illustrating the importance of normative data that both reflect practice effects and differences in stimulus set difficulty in the population of interest. After one night without sleep, medium to large effect sizes were observed for 3 of the 10 tests addressing vigilant attention (Cohen’s d = 1.00), cognitive throughput (d = 0.68), and abstract reasoning (d = 0.65).
CONCLUSIONS: In addition to providing neuroimaging-based novel information on the effects of spaceflight on a range of cognitive functions, Cognition will facilitate comparing the effects of ground-based analogues to spaceflight, increase consistency across projects, and thus enable meta-analyses.
Basner M, Savitt A, Moore TM, Port AM, McGuire S, Ecker AJ, Nasrini J, Mollicone DJ, Mott CM, McCann T, Dinges DF, Gur RC. Development and validation of the Cognition test battery for spaceflight. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2015; 86(11):942–952.
Keywords: astronaut; cognition; cognitive test; confinement; isolation; microgravity; neuropsychological test; performance; sleep deprivation; space; spaceflight; stress
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, Department of Psychiatry, and the Behavior Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Publication date: 01 November 2015
- This journal (formerly Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine), representing the members of the Aerospace Medical Association, is published monthly for those interested in aerospace medicine and human performance. It is devoted to serving and supporting all who explore, travel, work, or live in hazardous environments ranging from beneath the sea to the outermost reaches of space. The original scientific articles in this journal provide the latest available information on investigations into such areas as changes in ambient pressure, motion sickness, increased or decreased gravitational forces, thermal stresses, vision, fatigue, circadian rhythms, psychological stress, artificial environments, predictors of success, health maintenance, human factors engineering, clinical care, and others. This journal also publishes notes on scientific news and technical items of interest to the general reader, and provides teaching material and reviews for health care professionals.
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