Winter-over syndrome and the 'Antarctic stare'

From the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58, when hundreds of people first wintered at inland stations, doctors and psychologists recorded a pattern of insomnia, irritability, depression, memory lapses and a blank, absent gaze known as the 'Antarctic stare'.

1957 CE · -89.98, 90.00 · status: official

The account

Studies by Lawrence Palinkas and others found few traits that predict who copes. One proposed cause is 'polar T3 syndrome', a fall in thyroid hormone in long cold darkness. The syndrome is the usual background offered for Antarctica's few violent incidents. Position notional (South Pole).

Connections in the atlas

• 'Who Goes There?' and the thing in the ice
• The Belgica: the first Antarctic winter and its madness
• Byrd alone at Advance Base
• The chess-game axe attack at Vostok
• The doctor who burned his base rather than winter
• The death of Rodney Marks at the South Pole
• Shackleton's 'fourth man'
• The Bellingshausen stabbing and the 'book spoilers' story

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Winter-over syndrome
2. Wikipedia: Polar T3 syndrome