New approaches to countermeasures of the negative effects of microgravity in long-term space flights

The results of studies of the effects of mechanostimulation of the soles’ support zones on the effects of microgravity in the motor system are presented. It was shown that mechanostimulation of the soles support zones in regimen of slow and fast walking, being used daily during 7 days dry immersion, eliminates fully or suppress considerably all the microgravity effects. In subjects in which stimulation was applied six times a day by 20 min every hour the decrease of force–velocities properties and atrophic changes in the leg extensors after the exposure to microgravity were not revealed. Their transverse stiffness was only slightly lowered and the amplitude of electromyographic activity at rest stayed unchanged. The level of orthostatic deficiency in this group was also lower than in the group without stimulation. Thus presented experimental results in full agreement with previous studies allow to conclude that support afferentation plays the leading role in gravitational deprivation of the activity of tonic muscle system and that adequate mechanostimulation of the soles support zones can be used as a countermeasures mean in weightlessness.