Cognitive, Emotional, Physiological, Chronobiological and Genetic Effects of a Time Underground Isolation

This exceptional period has shown a significant desynchronization and loss of notion of time in a large number of people as well as important questions about human abilities to live in confined conditions. It is partly for this reason, but also to answer more fundamental questions on the perception of time that the extraordinary research expedition Deep Time was conceived: 40 days underground to know the links of our brain to time and synchronization within a group. A fundamental need for our future. This scientific expedition will take place entirely in France to ensure the feasibility and safety of the subjects and experimenters, under the direction of Christian Clot and the Institute of Human Adaptation, placed under the high patronage of the Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation.

The project addresses the fundamental question of human adaptation to the physical environment and the crucial role of the brain's neuroplasticity properties.

The present "Deep-Time" protocol naturally echoes the "out-of-time" isolation experiments conducted by the speleologist Michel Siffre starting in 1962 and its various components in the years that followed.

These "out of time" experiments led to certain conclusions. As curious as it may seem, in the absence of the time givers (synchronizers or Zeitgebers in German) that are the social rhythms and the day-night alternations, the spontaneous rhythm would settle on a rhythm of about 25 hours.

However, these experiments remained limited to isolated individuals, in conditions of spatial unity (no displacement outside of the work camps), leaving a whole field of research and questioning that the year 2021 has strongly emphasized.