On 5-10 June 2016 Toulouse hosted the 37th Annual International Gravitational Physiology (ISGP) Meeting, held by the European Space Agency (ESA) and National Center for Space Studies of France (Centre national d'études spatiales, CNES).

On 5-10 June 2016 Toulouse hosted the 37th Annual International Gravitational Physiology (ISGP) Meeting, held by the European Space Agency (ESA) and National Center for Space Studies of France (Centre national d'études spatiales, CNES).

The employees of Petrozavodsk University took part in the meeting. Professor Alexandr Meigal presented the results of two years of his work on using zero gravity state in rehabilitation of people with Parkinson disease and the prospect of this method. Other PetrSU employees working on this project are Professor Liudmila Gerasimova-Meigal and Professor Natalia Subbotina. PetrSU is supported in this work by the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the RAS (Moscow), the Research Center of Neurology (Moscow) and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). Some data is processed by postgraduate student of the UEF, graduate of PetrSU, Herman Miroshnichenko, who is writing his PhD thesis. Professor Meigal and Yulia Zaripova presented their report on the effects of zero gravity in antenatal period on a child’s development after birth. Both reports raised a serious discussion during the sessions and especially afterwards.

Toulouse is the center of space industry and research of France. The city hosts the Airbus Group and National Center for Space Studies, as well as medical and space institutes. There they have zero gravity systems that are being used at the Laboratory of New Methods of Physiological Research headed by Professor Meigal.

“Having the same equipment allows doing network research in several centers in the form of consortium, and this became the subject of discussion with French colleagues. Recently a PetrSU graduate has completed her practical training at the laboratory and enrolled into postgraduate program of the University of Caen Lower Normandy to work on physiology of vestibular apparatus during parabolic weightlessness flights. Here they have good theoretical and practical foundation for using parabolic weightlessness flights, as France in the leader in this area, in neurological rehabilitation. PetrSU employees’ research of motion activity of newborn children will also be continued as now researchers study how the space environment affects birth and development of animals. Around the world, scientists also pay great attention to the effects space conditions have on women, which is providently studied at the Laboratory of New Methods of Physiological Research of PetrSU,” told Professor Meigal.