Hippocampus

Neurologists consider the sea-horse shaped portion of the brain, known as the hippocampus, our inner GPS. It plays a crucial role in spatial navigation, but also in learning and memory.

Astronauts rely on it for complex procedures such as docking or landing tasks, and exploring unknown terrains. The lack of gravity reduces the amount of information the brain receives from the outside world and therefore causes disorientation.

During the HypoCampus experiment, participants had to learn, memorise and navigate through a new environment in microgravity bursts using virtual reality while brain imaging helped to piece together the internal picture. Alexander Stahn, principal investigator at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, wants to find out to what extent and for how long microgravity affects our spatial abilities.

This research is supported by ESA and DLR. The HypoCampus experiment will fly to the International Space Station in 2019 to identify any acute effects of long-duration spaceflight on the astronauts’ spatial cognition.