Neurofeedback and Expeditionary Training Paradigms for Developing Innate Resilience in Exploration-Class Crew

摘要

The novel nature of planned lunar and Mars missions requires that crew training account for autonomous decision making and the need for sustained high performance in difficult environments. NASA's Human Research Roadmap outlines several key risks for exploration-class missions that can contribute to mission-ending failures. Addressing these risks involves engineering solutions to decrements in human performance through the application of outcomes from exhaustive research. Sufficiendy addressing high-priority risks to health and performance may require a crew-centered orientation focusing on reducing reliance on exogenous countermeasures. A training paradigm is proposed that aims to reduce the complexity of solutions for heakh and performance and draw from internally derived resources for crew performance outcomes. Specifically, neurofeedback and expeditionary training, as supportive and complementary protocols, are hypothesized to increase metrics of innate resilience to extreme environments. The proposed paradigm relies on integrated neurofeedback and expeditionary training, an approach that has not been leveraged in human performance training for planned exploration-class missions. The present work applies concepts in human performance to this approach, and explores potential applications to anticipated increases in demand for commercial human spaceflight. In addition to testing the relationship between integrated training protocols and performance metrics, planned work will expand the application of EEG-based neurofeedback to address risk across several recognized elements of NASA's Human Research Roadmap. This work will integrate these methods for the support of innate resilience, with the goal of fostering a robust, self-sustaining, and autonomous crew environment with internally-derived sustained high performance.