AbstractThe health status of an astronaut prior to and following space flight has been a prime concern of NASA throughout the Apollo series of lunar landings, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz Test Projects (ASTP), and the new Spacelab-Shuttle missions. Both humoral and cellular immunity has been studied using classical clinical procedures. Serum proteins show fluctuations that can be explained with adaptation to flight. Conversely, cellular immune responses of lymphocytes appear to be depressed in both in vivo as well as in vitro. If this depression in vivo and in vitro is a result of the same cause, then man's adaptation to outer space living will present interesting challenges in the future. Since the cause may be due to reduced gravity, perhaps the designs of the experiments for space flight will offer insights at the cellular levels that will facilitate development of mechanisms for adaptation. Further, if the aging process is viewed as an adaptational concept or model and not as a disease process then perhaps space flight could very easily interact to supply some information on our biological time clocks.


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    Title :

    Immune response during space flight


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Experimental Gerontology ; 26 , 2-3 ; 289-296


    Publication date :

    1991-01-01


    Size :

    8 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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