Cosmonaut brains are 'rewired' by space missions, scientists

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"Structural analyses [of astronaut brains] have been done already, but not yet connectivity research," Wuyts said. "With this paper [on] connectivity, we finally approach the answers regarding this neuroplasticity."

To accomplish this, the team used a brain imaging technique called fiber tractography, a 3D reconstruction technique that uses data from diffusion MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), or dMRI scans to study the structure and connectivity within the brain.

"Fiber tractography gives a sort of wiring scheme of the brain. Our study is the first to use this specific method to detect changes in brain structure after spaceflight," Wuyts said in an emailed statement.

The researchers also "found changes in the neural connections between several motor areas of the brain," lead author Andrei Doroshin, a researcher at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, said in the statement. "Motor areas are brain centers where commands for movements are initiated. In weightlessness, an astronaut needs to adapt his or her movement strategies drastically, compared to Earth. Our study shows that their brain is rewired, so to speak."

"From previous studies, we know that these motor areas show signs of adaptation after spaceflight. Now, we have a first indication that it is also reflected at the level of connections between those regions," Wuyts added in the statement.

But these changes weren't just noticed immediately after cosmonauts returned to Earth. In the brain scans taken of the subjects seven months after landing, the team found that these changes were still present.