Trip to Mars could damage brain cells

摘要

Like cannonballs slamming into stained glass, high-energy particles can shatter the delicate tendrils that connect nerve cells, a study in mice finds. This neural destruction left mice with memory and learning problems, a finding that has implications for intrepid space explorers. The result is "worrisome, very worrisome," says neuroscientist M. Kerry O'Banion of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. But figuring out the human brain's fate on a long space trip is tricky, he notes.