Decreased immunity in the space environment or due to thymus atrophy

Lymphatic organs are important organs that play an immune function, and the thymus is an important lymphatic organ that produces T lymphocytes that are very important to the immune responseThere have been previous reports of reduced immunity in the space environment, but the reasons for this are unclearPrevious studies have found that after a space flight, astronauts have fewer T lymphocytes in their blood, suggesting that the space environment has an impact on thymus functionResearchers from theJapan Institute of Science and Chemistry, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the University of Tokyo conducted experiments on the International Space Station's Japan Hope experimental module for about a month to understand the effects of weightlessness on the thymus of laboratory miceby collecting and weighing laboratory mice raised in different environments, the researchers found that laboratory mice living in space weightlessness shrank significantly compared to laboratory mice living on Earth, while laboratory mice living in 1G gravity environments in space shrank lessresearchers also found that fewer genes associated with cell proliferation in laboratory mice living in space weightlessnessThey believe that the space weightlessness environment causes the proliferation of thymus cells to be inhibited, resulting in thymus atrophyresearchers say the results will help solve problems such as how to prevent abnormalities in the human immune system when they enter space.