Local medical researchers at MCG having part in the next Polaris Dawn spaceflight

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) – Physicians at the Medical College of Georgia are working with a private human spaceflight mission next week.

“As the world, as you can imagine, is starting to look for further space travel, and people are setting their sights on Mars, there’s a large challenge to long-term spaceflight. This is one directly related to the astronaut as you can imagine,” Director of MCG Center for Telehealth Dr. Matthew Lyon said.

Dr. Matthew Lyon was interested in learning more about Spaceflight Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome, or SANS.

“And so, I made a proposal to Polaris Dawn to investigate our mechanism of using ultrasound to make that diagnosis up in space, and they thought it was interesting. So, I get to go have an experiment with Polaris Dawn next week.”

SANS impacts more than 70% of astronauts, causing– what doctors think– can lead to structural changes in the brain, ultimately causing changes in vision.

“Specific to low-gravity spaceflight. It is most likely induced by the fluid shifts in the body. So, when you’re on earth, gravity pushes fluid down, but in space fluid can float up. And our mechanism that we’re investigating is that there’s fluid around the optic nerve behind. And certain people, because of injuries, or prior concussions, can have that sheath– the opting nerve sheath– or that space expand,” Dr. Lyon said.

Dr. Lyon and his research partner worked with URSUS Medical Designs LLC to build the 3-D ultrasound machine.

“They developed a specific ultrasound for spaceflight for this. So, it was a big deal to get another company to build an ultrasound to go to space to look for something that is not a normal ultrasound.”

That mission is expected to go up Tuesday around 3 a.m.

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