it's just like a white desert for as far as you can see
there is absolutely nothing and you come back and
it's overwhelming. Between 2016 and 2018 Dr Tim Heitland
spent 14 months in antarctica as part of a 12-person german research team
when he returned to regular life things felt
different the first thing i did was like hug the tree
being away from the icy continent felt normal after a few days
but one thing still didn't feel right being surrounded by people
there was a feeling that lasted for a long time
really long more than a year throughout heightland's journey a team
of researchers studied the doctor and his colleagues
to pinpoint the effects of long-term isolation their most striking finding
was that nearly all of the explorers brains
physically changed isolation has profound effects on us
scientists are only beginning to understand the full scope of these
changes and they're doing cutting-edge research
to discover if and how we can overcome them because although
humans didn't evolve to live in isolation
many of us are beginning to spend more and more time alone
and that could be a big problem
being in antarctica is very different from normal life
you get a lot of hurricane force storms and in the beginning it frightens
people like in our first storm we've been sitting in the station and
sometimes it starts to shake and then it's a place of total absolute
silence living in such a stark environment
profoundly alters the brain over the course of 14 months
most of Heitland's crew lost volume in part of the hippocampus
a region involved in spatial navigation learning
and emotional processing this is especially for us interesting
because if there's something to do with your memory we do not know for the
moment what is lost there dr hans christian goonga was one of the
researchers leading the study although his team's data doesn't show
exactly what faculties the expeditionaries lost
they found changes similar to what you'd expect to see in patients with
depression or alzheimer's disease it was so
significant that google wondered if they'd made a
mistake when you compare that to the post-traumatic stress syndrome they have
sometimes not so strong changes as these guys
they're down in antarctica these kinds of neurological changes can have major
effects on behavior in 2018 shortly after heightened
returned from his 14-month mission another antarctic expeditioner stabbed
one of his crewmates who was annoying him by spoiling the
endings to books a spoiler alert almost turned deadly the
problem isn't antarctica but isolation in february
a group of researchers published an analysis of more than 3 000 studies
on the psychological effects of quarantine they found extremely high
rates of ptsd among people who'd previously been
quarantined whether for sars or equine influenza solitary confinement
also leads to high prevalence of ptsd and depression
these trauma-related disorders strongly suggest underlying brain damage
and the latest animal research shows the damage extends far beyond the
hippocampus i became really interested in social
isolation because i was kind of drawn to um increases in violence that seem to be
occurring more in our society Dr Moriel Zelikowski studies the science
of fear and aggression really one of the ways
you get this huge increase in violence is having
um these increases in social isolation that's kind of true
across a variety of species while doing her postdoctoral research at caltech
zelikowski and her team isolated mice for two weeks
and then studied changes in their behavior and brain function
they focused their study on a specific molecule called Tac2
that triggers stress response the goal is to really tie
this increase in tech too to functional changes in behavior related to social
isolation when an animal is exposed to stress
Tac2 and potentially a host of additional
molecules signal a stress response across the brain
so when the mice are kept in isolation and the stress persists
the animals start acting skittish and aggressive
when zelikowski's team started looking at mouse brains they expected to find
elevated levels of tattoo in specific parts of the brain
like the amygdala which handles fear instead
they contact two in numerous regions across the brain
when they tagged the molecule with a green fluorescent compound
the effect was so dramatic you could see it without a microscope
unlike a single traumatic event or some memory being stored in
particular part of the brain what seemed to happen with isolation is many
different parts of the brain were affected
some of which weren't even really connected to each other Zelikowski and
her team believe some of those clusters of elevated attack too
explain extremely abnormal behaviors that persist after isolation
like irrational fears and violent behavior they did find proactive ways to
make the isolation less damaging and reverse its effects but it's hard if
not impossible to resocialize mice once they've been
isolated because they're so violent all of this paints a pretty grim picture
of isolation but some experts argue that's missing a huge part of the story
because many people say confinement experiences change their lives for the
better there you are this is Jack Stuster an
anthropologist who spent decades helping nasa make life in space more
livable in 2003 he began the longest running
experiment on the international space station
analyzing confidential journals astronauts kept while in space
stewster says the journals provide unique insight into the minds of
astronauts and the many changes they experience
while in orbit in some cases i learned more than i really wanted to know i mean
someone going through marriage problems or others who had a difficult time on
orbit with relations with mission control for
example or problems at home many of these
problems would seem minor if they weren't magnified by the effects
of isolation and the stress it applies to different regions of the brain
you know in isolation and confinement one of these things that happens is
trivial issues are exaggerated little things are blown out of
proportion and yet stewster says astronauts and other expeditioners
don't end up permanently damaged he says he's been amazed
time and time again how well astronauts adapt to space
and then back to life at home every one of them who i have met
has been exceptional in important ways and one of the
those ways is that they're resilient it's important to recognize that
resilience is something astronauts are pre-selected for
and they still have to work hard at it one of the astronauts duster has studied
is Mike Finke one of NASA's most veteran space fliers
flying on three missions for a total of 381 days in orbit
as soon as we land we want everything to be the way it was before
and that just doesn't work most of the astronaut reintegration process
is designed to address the pain of returning from low earth orbit
we meet with the physical trainer and they work us out the heck out of us
so that our muscles and bones come back But NASA also has a family support team
to help astronauts anticipate some of the interpersonal and emotional
challenges of returning because after a long time away even
minor changes can be jarring for example my wife was in charge and
then i came back and i i didn't immediately say no i'm in
charge now no that wasn't gonna work i'd be really tired at the end of the day
and my wife said hey time to take out the trash it's like
well i guess i'm back getting back to a normal routine
is important for reuniting with family and friends it also has lots of
important health implications recent studies suggest the hippocampus is
surprisingly resilient given sufficient exercise combined with
the diet rich in antioxidants sleep is also incredibly helpful
particularly REM sleep when researchers believe the hippocampus
is forming memories meanwhile researchers like moriel
Zelikowski are exploring possible drug treatments
that could protect the brain from isolation-induced damage
their interventions have shown promising results in mice though they're still a
long way from having something they could bring to humans
which leaves most experts recommending at least for now
that people in isolation try to frame it as an opportunity
and grow from experiencing a new perspective it reduces
your social relationships totally to to the core of communicating
of of getting to know each other taking care of each other
and trying to have the best possible time together
and i think that is totally valuable you