Space Nerves

People who complete long missions into Space can get swelling of their optic nerve in the eye. The optic nerve is the “cable” that connects the eye to the brain, so that the information received by the eye can be processed appropriately.

In the December 2022 edition of JAMA Ophthalmology, Dr. Laura Pardon and colleagues published a study that indicates that there are particular types of optic nerves that seem to have an increased risk of developing this kind of swelling. If that is true, the data could be useful to inform the creation of a method to determine the risk of getting edema.