NASA developed an innovative technology to help astronauts combat motion sickness during space flight. That technology becomes available in March for a much wider range of human health and performance uses.
Dr. Mae C. Jemison, America’s first African-American female astronaut, and BioSentient Corporation, Houston, obtained the license to commercialize the space-age technology known as Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise (AFTE). AFTE was originally developed by Dr. Patricia Cowings of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. The technique is a patented combination of biofeedback and autogenic therapy that allows individuals to eliminate or minimize their unwanted physical responses to outside stimuli by controlling their autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is responsible for controlling and regulating involuntary bodily functions, such as breathing, heartbeat, sweating, blood vessel dilation and glandular secretions.
“What were previously considered involuntary, or autonomic, responses are in fact under voluntary control if you are taught properly,” said Cowings, who developed AFTE. “I have never met anyone who could not control their bodily responses to some degree the first time they tried. It’s a function of knowing what to do,” she said.
AFTE consists of a system of compact, ambulatory equipment to measure, record and display real-time ANS functions. It is combined with a unique six to 12-hour training session to teach individuals how to control their physiology using the feedback from the equipment. Advancing the original design, BioSentient has created a seamless system that includes a garment a person wears that can measure and wirelessly transfer physiologic data in real time; a small wrist display; and a computer station that a trainer can use to capture the data, monitor and teach a person the regulation techniques.
In various controlled studies conducted at NASA, Cowings found that AFTE is 85 percent effective in reducing motion side effects in both men and women, and individuals for up to three years after initial training retain it. Since the mid-1980s, AFTE has been used successfully with U.S. astronauts, payload specialists and Russian cosmonauts. It has been used successfully to return U.S. Navy pilots suffering severe airsickness to active duty in high-performance aircraft.
“BioSentient is examining AFTE as a treatment for anxiety, nausea, migraine and tension headaches, chronic pain, hypertension, hypotension, and other stress-related disorders,” Jemison said. She took the training and successfully used it during her Space Shuttle flight, STS-47, in 1992. “Over 13 percent of adult Americans suffer from anxiety disorders, like the public speaker who panics or the athlete who ‘chokes’ on the field. With AFTE these individuals can learn to control that anxiety without it controlling them,” she said.
“Other potential beneficiaries of AFTE include business executives, homeland security and law enforcement officers, air traffic controllers, nuclear power plant operators and others working in hazardous materials occupations where optimal personal performance and situational awareness are essential,” added Jemison, who also is a physician and chemical engineer.
Those who provide services to patients such as psychologists, psychiatrists, pyschophysiologists, cardiologists, neurologists, physical therapists, athletic trainers, biofeedback practitioners and rehabilitation and behavioral therapists can use AFTE. By training their patients and or trainees, these specialists can teach people how to control their physiology without pharmaceutical help.
“The commercialization of this NASA technology is an outstanding example of applying space research technology to improve the quality the quality of life on Earth,” noted Phil Herlth of the Ames Commercial Technology Office.