ARKHANGELSK, July 7. /TASS/. The Arctic Floating University expedition started working in the Barents Sea by analyzing the expedition participants' adaptation to Arctic conditions, said Alexandra Yelfimova, a senior researcher at the Endocrinology Laboratory of the Professor Tkachev Federal Research Center for Comprehensive Arctic Studies (the Russian Academy of Sciences' Urals Branch). The researchers are studying heart rate variability, hormone levels, mental and emotional conditions, and sleep quality.
"When exploring the Arctic, people get exposed to a wide range of difficult climatic, ship and social conditions, and they need to get adapted to them as soon as possible so that to be able to carry out successfully the scientific tasks they are facing," she said. "Therefore, it is of fundamental importance to develop methods aimed at studying the body adaptation processes and at offering measures to maintain appropriate adaptability of researchers to working conditions."
At several control points, specialists will take from the expedition's participants samples of morning and evening saliva, as well as venous blood to monitor levels of cortisol, testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA, known as androstenolone), and these tests will be followed by tests to determine DHEA/cortisol, testosterone/cortisol indices, as those values will be used to assess the body's adaptive reserves. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone, which is released mainly under stress, and DHEA is an anabolic hormone, which is released simultaneously with cortisol and which helps in compensating for this stress.
