MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 25 (UPI) -- Dr. Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space, is taking off on a new venture: to apply the technology that helped her bypass a common side effect of flight in orbit to such earthly ailments as anxiety disorders, high blood pressure and nausea during pregnancy or cancer treatments.
The former astronaut, physician, chemical engineer, professor and author envisions uses as multi-dimensional as her background for the system, called Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise.
She says the technique, patented by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, enabled her to take a nearly 8-day spin in the shuttle Endeavor without the queasiness, headache, fatigue, vomiting or, in severe cases, incapacitation suffered by some 70 percent of travelers who break free of Earth's gravity.
Simply put, she explains, with the technique, she learned how to voluntarily suppress her motion sickness and malaise and improve her performance as scientific mission specialist on the 50th shuttle mission in 1992.
She has obtained an exclusive license from NASA to commercialize the technology and founded BioSentient Corp. of Houston to broaden its reach and scope.
"Among many patients nowadays, there is a trend toward wanting to get well with as little intervention and as few drugs as possible," Jemison told United Press International. "AFTE ... offers the possibility for patients to help themselves, to control their own responses to their environment and its stimuli."
The envisioned potential commercial applications of AFTE include:
--treating hypertension, epilepsy, attention deficit disorder or nausea associated with chemotherapy;
--alleviating low blood pressure in patients with diabetes, spinal cord injuries or paralysis;
--minimizing human error in military, commercial and private pilots flying under emergency conditions;
--monitoring motion sickness, fatigue and sleep deprivation in military and civilian operators of land, air and sea vehicles and evaluating corrective countermeasures;
--altering brain activity to minimize the effects of sleep deprivation on mental acuity;
--curtailing the symptoms of fatigue, jet-lag, insomnia and high stress.
"We want to make sure that folks know we're not saying that we can cure everything," Jemison stressed. "We're going to have a very controlled and thoughtful process, making sure that anything we talk about actually works."
The technology, pioneered by research psychologist Patricia Cowings at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., aims to put participants in charge of automatic bodily functions, such as breathing, heartbeat and sweating.
"What were previously considered involuntary, or autonomic, responses are in fact under voluntary control if you are taught properly," said Cowings, the first female scientist trained as an astronaut who now heads the Psychophysiological Research Laboratory at Ames.
The drug-free method she developed during 15 years as principal investigator for life sciences shuttle flight experiments combines biofeedback and autogenic therapy to train subjects to control their autogenic nervous system. This subsidiary of the central nervous system regulates the iris of the eye and the smooth-muscle action of the heart, blood vessels, glands, lungs, stomach, colon, bladder and other visceral organs thought beyond the reach of willful control.
"AFTE is based on the idea that if one learns how to control these responses and bring them back to normal, then many of the symptoms that accompany the problem are relieved," Jemison explained.
The equipment, which BioSentient has modernized and miniaturized into a 1-pound bundle, monitors the subject and the method trains him to control his responses.
A pharmaceutical company scientist voiced some skepticism about patient acceptance of a system he views as inconvenient and impractical.
"In my opinion, when 'ease of treatment' is evaluated from a patient perspective, AFTE technology does not stack up favorably to an effective pharmaceutical product," Mario Rocci, Jr., the 2003 president-elect of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, told UPI.
Rocci serves as president and chief executive officer of Prevalere Life Sciences, Inc. of Whitesboro, N.Y., an independent laboratory conducting research for the pharmaceutical industry.
"For example, for diseases such as hypertension, which in many patients is free of symptoms and is well treated with traditional pharmaceutical products, AFTE treatment could be perceived as extraordinarily burdensome by the patient, compared to a pharmaceutical product that can be taken once or twice a day," Rocci said.
He sees the technology's most likely success:
--in patients with severe, debilitating diseases who fail to respond to other treatment, such as severe migraine headache sufferers;
--in patients who experience undesirable side effects from traditional drug therapy;
--in "high stress" situations encountered by law enforcement or homeland security forces where the technology may enhance performance and perception.
Much work remains to show the effectiveness of AFTE in these situations, Rocci said.
"I have never met anyone who could not control their bodily responses to some degree the first time they tried," said Cowings, who joined NASA Ames 23 years ago. "It's a function of knowing what to do."
Since the mid-1980s, studies have indicated AFTE is the "right stuff" for minimizing space sickness in U.S. astronauts, payload specialists and Russian cosmonauts and for returning Navy pilots suffering severe airsickness to active duty in high-performance aircraft, Cowings said.
"The experiments worked better than our wildest dreams largely because we took a different approach from anyone else studying motion sickness," Cowings said in a telephone interview.
In other investigations, she found the technology also eliminated motion sickness in 85 percent of the men and women tested for up to three years following 6 hours of training.
Less definitive research has shown preliminary success in using the technique to ease the misery of morning sickness. Cowings hopes to expand the studies to determine any benefits for cancer patients suffering the ill effects of chemotherapy.
She also is involved in a collaborative effort, now in its second year, with doctors at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta to test the technique's effect on patients with high blood pressure. She hopes to have an answer within a year.
AFTE consists of a system of compact, ambulatory equipment to measure, record and display ANS functions combined with 6 to 12 hours of training that teaches individuals how to control their physiology using the feedback from the equipment.
In an advanced design upgraded by BioSentient engineers, the trainee wears a specially constructed undergarment that measures and wirelessly transfers physiologic data, a small wrist display and a computer station a trainer uses to capture the information, monitor the patient and teach him the regulation techniques.
Jemison expects to have an advanced system for easier expanded use available by early next year.
"BioSentient is examining AFTE as a treatment for anxiety, nausea, migraine and tension headaches, chronic pain, hypertension and hypotension, and stress-related disorders," Jemison said. "Over 13 percent of adult Americans suffer
from anxiety disorders alone, like the public speaker who panics and the pro football player who 'chokes' on the field, but with AFTE, these individuals can learn to control that anxiety without it controlling them."
BioSentient's customer list includes psychologists, psychiatrists, psychophysiologists, cardiologists, physiologists, neurologists, physical therapists, physiatrists, athletic trainers, biofeedback practitioners and rehabilitation and behavioral therapists. The company plans to sell the monitoring equipment for use in hospitals, clinics, offices, health clubs and sports teams.
Laboratories already are using BioSentient equipment in research studies of the ANS, emotion and behavior, Jemison noted. She expects business to grow alongside familiarity with and offerings of new products.
Most of the BioSentient products will serve the medical devices market, which topped $71.4 billion in 2001 and is estimated to broach $100 billion in 2003, including $21 billion in diagnostics, $18 billion in lab equipment and $4.5 billion in homecare/respiratory items, Jemison noted.
"The commercialization of this NASA technology is an outstanding example of applying space research technology to improve the quality of life on Earth," said Phil Herlth of the Ames Commercial Technology Office.
While AFTE currently is open only to study participants, Jemison hopes to have the services more widely available in late 2004.
BioSentient's future is reflected in the company's name, she said.
"We adopted it because we think that the next very important trend in human biology is the individual's awareness of his or her own physiology -- bringing to consciousness, to sentience shall we say, what's happening in the body," she concluded. "There was a time when physicians thought about people helping to heal themselves. And now, we're just coming back around to that way of thinking."
