Research assistants Susan Gleed and Kaela Omengan joined Dr. Scott Wood in the Neuroscience Lab at the NASA Johnson Space Center this past summer! Read their accounts below about their experience.
Susan Gleed:
TBA
Kaela Omengan:
Completing the internship with the Neuroscience Lab under Dr. Scott Wood’s mentorship had many highlights. Susan and I had the privilege to contribute to data analysis for a sensorimotor Assessments study in which participants were spun around in a human centrifuge to simulate space motion sickness and completed a series of tasks afterwards. Additionally, we were able to join Dr. Wood in presenting to International Space University students about space motion sickness and the current effort to create countermeasures for it.
Currently, we have a short manuscript in progress with Dr. Wood comparing two measures of motion sickness: the 0-20 simple discomfort rating and the Pensacola Diagnostic Index. The 0-20 scale is less known but it’s a simple scale where 0 equates to no symptoms, 10 is halfway to vomiting, and 20 is vomiting. This allows for a quick and efficient rating. The PDI on the other hand is a well-established scale, but is just more time consuming so our question was whether the 0-20 scale is valid against the PDI, and the relationship correlating the two scales is indeed strong.
Overall, I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity! All the tours, lectures,, and conversations with people definitely provided me the perspective and growth necessary to continue my education. Simply being in the whole NASA environment was super motivating and inspiring. Especially for me, as I’m preparing to apply for grad schools, the unified endeavor towards space exploration from people of all disciplines and backgrounds that I witnessed reassured me that anything is indeed possible with the right mindset and drive!
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