About this Research Topic

Background

Various health disciplines have expressed a growing interest in personalized medicine in order to achieve better outcomes of medical interventions. The physiological responses to change are often characterized by substantial inter-individual variability both on Earth and even in Space. Such variability is frequently underplayed or ignored in most scientific studies. However, by failing to characterize such variability, vital information regarding the mechanisms that underline such responses, in addition to normal regulatory processes, is potentially lost.

Goals
The proposed new Frontiers Research Topic seeks to provide an opportunity to present, describe and explore inter-individual variability (and methods of assessment) in response to changes in activity levels, gravity loading, nutritional status, pharmaceuticals and exposure to radiation. In the process we hope to provide novel data that can inform fundamental science and also practitioners faced with managing (or even harnessing) such variability. Therefore, the aims of this new Frontiers Research Topic are to provide a platform:

1) to present, describe and explore inter-individual variability in the physiological response to change in fields such as exercise science, gravitational physiology, nutrition, pharmacology and radiation biology;
2) to expose and evaluate potential mechanisms e.g. genetic predispositions contributing to inter-individual variability of physiological responses to change;
3) for statisticians to present novel mathematical approaches to expose and evaluate inter-individual variability of physiological responses to change;
4) to highlight the importance of the exposure and evaluation of inter-individual variability in the physiological responses to change.

Scope and information for Authors
The proposed new Research Topic seeks to investigate inter-individual variability of physiological responses in the following disciplines:

1) Inter-individual variability in response to physical exercise
2) Inter-individual variability in response to gravitational unloading
3) Inter-individual variability in pharmacology
4) Inter-individual variability in response to dietary interventions
5) Inter-individual variability in response to radiation exposure

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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