Impact of Microgravity on the Skin and the Process of Wound Healing

Microgravity is a component of the complex environment in space. Due to its adverse effects on the human body, it poses unknown obstacles to the implementation of space missions. In microgravity, the body often loses the point of force and it is difficult to control itself, which leads to various accidental collisions. As the largest organ of the human body, the skin is often damaged by traumatic injury because of its large contact area with the external environment. In this study, we summarized and discussed the latest research on the impact of weightlessness or simulated microgravity on the skin and the process of wound healing to further understand the changes and mechanisms of wound healing. A series of studies have investigated the effects of weightlessness or simulated microgravity on the human skin and the wound healing process. Under microgravity environment, the skin showed certain changes, such as thinning and altered blood supply; microgravity also affected various cellular functions and their associations with the extracellular matrix during wound healing. Various stages of wound healing and sophisticated interactions between the elements involved in wound healing become disordered in a microgravity environment. However, more studies are needed to further understand the impact and mechanisms of microgravity on the trauma repair process to provide theoretical guidance for wound healing. With the support and help of a lot of good researches and trails, accidental trauma will no longer be an obstacle to human exploration of space.