[Ecopsychological investigations in 520-day isolation].

Assessment of the importance of higher plants for emotions and relations within the group of test-subjects was performed in the long-duration chamber experiment MARS-500 designed as an imitation of an exploration mission. It was shown that the degree of involvement with the plants dictated the magnitude and character of the ecopsychological effect. Subjects with high psychological stability and dominating introversion were more inclined to interact with plants. Remoteness of the greenhouse from recreation areas weakened the ecopsychological effect and denied the crew the opportunity to interact with plants. At the same time, the presence of the plant growth unit with decorative plants in the lounge had certainly a positive psychological effect. The crew gave preference to big bright flowers that did not demand much care. This observation should be taken into consideration by designers of psychological recreation environments. Choice of plants to be grown as a dietary supplement for the crew in isolation and confinement should be made with allowance for cultural preferences of crew members.

[Characteristics of the signal lag effect on crew--control center communications in the 520-day simulation experiment].

The 520-day experimental simulation of an exploration mission provided an opportunity to apply content analysis for studying the patterns of crew--Control center (CC) communication impeded by lag times. The period of high autonomy was featured by drastic reduction of the number of crew questions and requests which was judged as a marker of adaptation to the simulated space mission environment. The "key" events in the experiment changed the content of crew messages radically attesting to misperception of time, emotional involvement, want of CC feedback and draining out negative emotions. After the period of high autonomy with full loss of communication with controllers the traffic of crew messages onto the outside was noted to become very light which could also point to temporal changes in the communication style developed in the conditions of isolation and autonomous existence.

[Association between the person-unique individual behavior styles and the quality and reliability of operator's professional performance].

Among the prioritized objectives of maintaining psychophysiological safety in extended space missions is the buildup of crew professional reliability. Reliability of operator's performance hinges as on skills level, so personal working style. The purpose of the investigation was to penetrate into the patterns of association between a person-unique individual behavior style and quality and reliability of simulated professional operator's jobs. The investigation was part of the MARS-500 experiment (RF SSC - IBMP RAS, 2010-2011) and employed 2 procedures: the well-established manual vehicle control (Pilot-1) and a new one tasking with planetary surface exploration (VIRTU). Observation of individual work styles resulted in identification of 2 fundamentally different approaches to handling the operator's duties--reliable and innovative. It is noteworthy that a separate participant adhered to one and the same style when coping with either procedure. Also, personality traits predisposing to a concrete behavior were found, which confirms the hypothesis of deep personal nature of operator's work style that reveals itself consistently and isomorphically no matter the type of important job.

[Characteristics of crew communicative behavior and gonadal hormones excretion during long-term chamber isolation of international male crew].

The peculiarities of psycho-physiological adaptation to the simulation of the extended autonomous manned Mission to Mars with limited resources and external communication were studied. Verbal communication of the crew of 6 male subjects, representing Russian and European Space Agency with Mission Control (MC) as well as physiological correlates of 105-days life and work in the chambers under sensory deprivation, confinement, monotony and high autonomy were observed. Psychological, physiological and biochemical (urinary cortisol and gonadal hormones) testing together with content-analysis of the crew communication with MC were made in parallel. Gained results confirmed to a considerable extent the preliminary hypothesis about the serious impact of such stressful factors as intragroup conflict, significant decrease of the variety and scope of communication with the outer world and social pressure on the verbal behavior and hormonal excretion of the future Martian crew. For the first time correlation between the metabolism of the gonadal hormones and the volume, content and creativity of the verbal human behavior during various stages of adaptation to the extended isolation in the chambers.

[Style of communication between mission control centers and space crews].

The article deals with a pilot investigation into the audio communication of cosmonauts with ground controllers. The purpose was to verify in space flight the patterns and trends revealed in model tests of intergroup communication, and to pinpoint the signature of multinational crew communication with 2 national mission control centers (MCCs). The investigation employed authors' content-analysis adapted to the scenario of long-duration mission. The investigation resulted in a phenomenon of double-loop ground-orbit communication, divergence, difference in opinion predictable from the concept formulated by G.T.Beregovoi. Also, there was a notable difference of expressions used by controllers of 2 MCCs.

[Psychophysiological adaptation and communication behavior of human operator during 105-day isolation].

Purpose of the study was to assess effects of 105-d isolation on language behavior and psychophysiological status of volunteered subjects. Software NOOJ was used to determine frequency of mentioning in written reports notions falling into the categories of "Needs", "Activity", "Negation" and "Social regulation". Well-being, activity and mood were assessed with the SAN questionnaire and urine cortisol measurement. Correlation of the content-analysis results with phases of adaptation to extended isolation and confinement made it possible to elicit specific features of language behavior of the small group members, at the time of simulated autonomy, specifically. Besides, the computerized content-analysis enabled a quantitative description of communication strategy as a function of psychophysiological adaptation to stressful factors of the simulation experiment.

[Antitumor effect of low-intensity extremely high-frequency electromagnetic radiation on a model of solid Ehrlich carcinoma].

The influence of different exposure regimes of low-intensity extremely high-frequency electromagnetic radiation on the growth rate of solid Ehrlich carcinoma in mice has been studied. It was shown that, at an optimum repetition factor of exposure (20 min daily for five consecutive days after the tumor inoculation), there is a clearly pronounced frequency dependence of the antitumor effect. The analysis of experimental data indicates that the mechanisms of antitumor effects of the radiation may be related to the modification of the immune status of the organism. The results obtained show that extremely high-frequency electromagnetic radiation at a proper selection of exposure regimes can result in distinct and stable antitumor effects.