Lifeboat Foundation

Lack of skills and training is a big issue. Some employees may simply not have the necessary skills or training to perform their tasks effectively. Investing in employee development can improve performance and solve lots of heartaches. Let us share Jenny’s story: Why Jenny’s Promotion Changed the Way We View Training: A Dive into Neuroscience “Guess who got the promotion?” Jenny burst in one Monday morning, her face beaming with a mix of surprise and elation. Most of us knew Jenny from her early days—an employee with lots of enthusiasm but, frankly, a bit lost in the intricacies of the industry.

Recently, we spoke to Shai Efrati MD, Chair of Aviv Clinics’ Medical Advisory Board and Founder and Director of the world-leading Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research, about the longevity and healthspan benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). The Aviv Medical Program is designed for individuals experiencing cognitive and physical decline because of a variety of conditions, including stroke, post-COVID and age-related cognitive decline, Aviv also has an increasing number of clients who wish to improve their cognitive and physical performance and increase their healthspan.

One of Aviv’s patients is Patti Finnegan, a senior living in The Villages in Florida, and we sat down with her to find out what HBOT entails for the patient.

Longevity. Technology: At Longevity. Technology, we often cover therapies and treatments that have been developed or launched, discussing the science behind them and the possible results for the patient. What is less common, however, is to hear from the patients themselves – how did they find the experience and has it made a difference? What starts in a test tube or a white board ends up in a person, so it is important to retain a focus on the end user; after all, while patient population data is important, improving outcomes for actual people is the key goal behind longevity science – real people living longer, healthier lives.

An essential protein that acts as a gatekeeper for calcium entering cells promotes the growth of oral cancer and generates pain, according to a new study published in Science Signaling led by researchers at New York University College of Dentistry.

Targeting this protein—the ORAI1 calcium channel —could provide a new approach to treating oral cancer, which causes persistent pain that worsens as it progresses.

“Our results show that the ORAI1 channel fuels the growth of oral cancer tumors and produces an abundance of molecules that, once secreted, interact with neurons resulting in an increased sensitivity to pain,” said Ga-Yeon Son, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Pathobiology at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s first author.

As scientists get better at interpreting the language of the brain, they get closer to not just treating disease, but also enhancing our senses and our intellects. Should they go there?

Summary: New findings challenge our understanding of fruit fly social behaviors. While traditionally thought to rely primarily on chemical receptors for social interactions, the fruit fly’s visual system plays a pivotal role too.

By manipulating the visual feedback neurons in male fruit flies, researchers discovered that their social inhibitions were altered, leading males to court other males. This novel insight can potentially enlighten our comprehension of social behaviors in humans, including those with bipolar disorder and autism.

Male fruit flies don’t usually like each other. Socially, they reject their fellow males and zero in on the females they discern via chemical receptors—or so scientists thought.

New research from Cornell University biologists suggests the fruit fly’s visual system, not just chemical receptors, are deeply involved with their social behaviors. The work sheds light on the possible origin of differences in human social behaviors, such as those seen in people with bipolar disorder and autism.

The paper is published in Current Biology.

A new blood-based diagnostic test could be a major advancement for the treatment of Parkinson’s, a disease that afflicts 10 million people worldwide and is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s.

Building on the knowledge that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a prominent role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s a team of researchers, led by neuroscientists at Duke Health, have developed an assay that enables the accurate, real-time quantification of mitochondrial DNA damage in a scalable platform [1]. The results of the study, which received support in part from The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, have been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“Currently, Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed largely based on clinical symptoms after significant neurological damage has already occurred,” said senior author Laurie Sanders, PhD, an associate professor in Duke School of Medicine’s departments of Neurology and Pathology and member of the Duke Center for Neurodegeneration and Neurotherapeutics.

Summary: Researchers provided robust evidence supporting the controversial “critical brain hypothesis” through a project called DishBrain.

This experiment, involving 800,000 human neural cells playing Pong, reveals how neurons shift into a “neural critical” state when informed about the surrounding environment, enabling cascades of brain activity. This state lies between the extremes of epileptic excitation and a comatose stall.

The findings hint at profound insights into brain function and potential treatments for neurological disorders.