10-min exposure to a 2.5% hypercapnic environment increases cerebral blood blow but does not impact executive function

Space travel and exploration are associated with increased ambient CO₂ (i.e., a hypercapnic environment). Some work reported that the physiological changes (e.g., increased cerebral blood flow [CBF]) associated with a chronic hypercapnic environment contributes to a “space fog” that adversely impacts cognition and psychomotor performance, whereas other work reported no change or a positive change. Here, we employed the antisaccade task to evaluate whether transient exposure to a hypercapnic environment influences top-down executive function (EF). Antisaccades require a goal-directed eye movement mirror-symmetrical to a target and are an ideal tool for identifying subtle EF changes. Healthy young adults (aged 19–25 years) performed blocks of antisaccade trials prior to (i.e., pre-intervention), during (i.e., concurrent) and after (i.e., post-intervention) 10-min of breathing factional inspired CO₂ (FiCO₂) of 2.5% (i.e., hypercapnic condition) and during a normocapnic (i.e., control) condition. In both conditions, CBF, ventilatory and cardiorespiratory responses were measured. Results showed that the hypercapnic condition increased CBF, ventilation and end-tidal CO₂ and thus demonstrated an expected physiological adaptation to increased FiCO₂. Notably, however, null hypothesis and equivalence tests indicated that concurrent and post-intervention antisaccade reaction times were refractory to the hypercapnic environment; that is, transient exposure to a FiCO₂ of 2.5% did not produce a real-time or lingering influence on an oculomotor-based measure of EF. Accordingly, results provide a framework that – in part – establishes the FiCO₂ percentage and timeline by which high-level EF can be maintained. Future work will explore CBF and EF dynamics during chronic hypercapnic exposure as more direct proxy for the challenges of space flight and exploration.