Torin Clark: Investigating Disorientation Experienced By Pilots and Astronauts

Humans did not evolve to function in microgravity. As such, a slew of interesting alterations and changes occur to the human body when it operates in space.

New AES faculty hire Dr. Torin Clark is involved with understanding and mitigating these changes through extensive human factors research. He explains:

“I focus on the issues that humans encounter when they explore space. Within the challenges of human spaceflight, I am interested in the problems involved with humans operating aerospace vehicles and supervising control systems, the challenges of which may be compounded by disorientation caused by altered gravity environments typical of aerospace applications.”

Clark’s interest in bioastronautics was originally cultivated by courses he took as an undergraduate student in CU’s AES department. During his graduate studies at MIT, Clark focused on astronaut perception and control during future lunar landings. He notes:

“We were interested in determining how astronauts integrate information from a variety of sources, such as how much time they have left before their fuel supply runs out, where they want to ideally land, and where they need to land in order to avoid hazards. We came up with display and control interfaces that would help them [integrate this information] efficiently.”

For his Ph.D. work, Clark investigated sensorimotor impairment experienced by pilots and astronauts in hypo-gravity (less than 1 G) environments. Clark explains:

“Humans spend their entire lives in a 1 G environment; thus, our brains have learned to perceive the direction of gravity and use it establish our orientation and balance. In aircraft, pilots can misperceive ‘down,’ leading to flight vehicle accidents. I am looking into how humans perceive orientation and how this perception is effected by the magnitude of gravity, with the hope of ultimately developing countermeasures to mitigate the resulting sensory impairment.”

 

Due to the difficulty of simulating hypo-gravity environments on Earth’s surface, Clark employed a centrifuge to test human orientation in hyper-gravity environments (more than 1 G). He found that participants “misperceived their environment” in more than 1G, overestimating the tilt of the centrifuge. By “pre-training” participants in hyper-gravity environments of varying magnitudes, Clark determined that the negative effects of this disorientation on pilot performance could be lessened.

For his post-doctoral research, Clark served as a NSBRI First Award Fellow at the Jenks Vestibular Physiology Laboratory in the Harvard Medical School. There, he focused on understanding the individual differences that lead to variations in responses to microgravity environments. By understanding these differences, Clark aims to support the development of personalized pre-flight countermeasures.

These countermeasures, if developed, would not only be useful to astronauts; they could also decrease spatial disorientation in pilots and assist in balance rehabilitation for patients recovering from injuries and surgeries.

Clark is preparing to join the AES faculty in January 2016. For Clark, CU-Boulder has both personal and professional allure:

“I grew up just outside of Boulder and am very excited to return to that area - Boulder is definitely home for me. CU-Boulder is one of the few places where bioastronautics is a focus area, and it is a national leader in the field. My interest in sensorimotor impairment and focus on the physiological aspects of bioastronautics will nicely compliment the current research that is going on.”

 

To catch a glimpse of Clark's experimentation in action, check out the video below of a "dummy" subject being tilted during a "hyper-G" centrifugation paradigm to study the effects of altered gravity on tilt perception:

[video:https://youtu.be/OvC6DK-loYI]

-Written By: Ari Sandberg, Intern