Lifeboat Foundation

Cognitive training interventions are a promising approach to mitigate cognitive deficits common in aging and, ultimately, to improve functioning in older adults. Baseline neural factors, such as properties of brain networks, may predict training outcomes and can be used to improve the effectiveness of interventions. Here, we investigated the relationship between baseline brain network modularity, a measure of the segregation of brain sub-networks, and training-related gains in cognition in older adults. We found that older adults with more segregated brain sub-networks (i.e., more modular networks) at baseline exhibited greater training improvements in the ability to synthesize complex information. Further, the relationship between modularity and training-related gains was more pronounced in sub-networks mediating “associative” functions compared with those involved in sensory-motor processing. These results suggest that assessments of brain networks can be used as a biomarker to guide the implementation of cognitive interventions and improve outcomes across individuals. More broadly, these findings also suggest that properties of brain networks may capture individual differences in learning and neuroplasticity.

Trail Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT#00977418

Citation: Gallen CL, Baniqued PL, Chapman SB, Aslan S, Keebler M, Didehbani N, et al. (2016) Modular Brain Network Organization Predicts Response to Cognitive Training in Older Adults. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0169015. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169015

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Non-profit research ultimately benefits for-profit companies and is an essential part of the development chain of any therapy.

Companies like Unity Biotech have taken non-profit research and are developing it for-profit, this is the only way that therapies will make it to market and pay for the huge costs involved in development. You may have concerns that our current crowdfunding project is with a for-profit company so here is CellAge to answer this question.

Continue reading “CellAge Campaign Q&A: Are You a For-Profit Company? | Lifespan.io” »

The body is under constant invasion by microbes so rejuvenation of the immune system and reduction of imflammation is a big priority for rejuvenation biotechnology.

Recent publications have proposed that aging should be classified as a disease (Bulterijs et al., 2015; Zhavoronkov and Bhullar, 2015; Zhavoronkov and Moskalev, 2016). The goal of this manuscript is not to dispute these claims, but rather to suggest that when classifying aging as a disease, it is important to include the contribution of microbes.

As recently as ~115 years ago, more than half of all deaths were caused by infectious diseases, including pneumonia, influenza, tuberculosis, gastrointestinal infections, and diphtheria (Jones et al., 2012). Since then, the establishment of public health departments that focused on improved sanitation and hygiene, and the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines allowed for a dramatic decrease in infectious disease-related mortality (Report, 1999). In 2010, the death rate for infectious diseases was reduced to 3% (Jones et al., 2012). Simultaneously, as infectious disease-related mortality rates have decreased, global lifespan has increased from ~30 to ~70 years (Riley, 2005).

Continue reading “Classifying Aging As a Disease: The Role of Microbes” »

A new genetic disease has been discovered that could play a key role in devastating brain conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, opening up the possibility of new forms of treatment.

A 47-year-old Canadian woman, who had been having difficulty walking and balancing since she was 28, was found to have a new genetic disease after 10 known conditions were ruled out, according to a paper in the journal Nature by an international team of researchers.

The disease causes an over-reaction by the body’s natural repair system. An enzyme, known as PARP1, goes into over-drive, ultimately causing the deaths of brain cells.

Continue reading “Newly discovered disease could hold key to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s – and even ageing” »

Senescent cell removal is the first true rejuvenation therapy to treat one of the aging processes and with human clinicial trials in the next 18 months these are some very exciting times. Here is yet another study showing natural compounds can be used in combination with drugs to kill senescent cells.

Today’s open access research paper outlines the discovery of yet another new candidate drug for the selective destruction of senescent cells. This is an increasingly popular research topic nowadays. Senescent cells perform a variety of functions, but on the whole they are bad news. Cells become senescent in response to stresses or reaching the Hayflick limit to replication. They cease further division and start to generate a potent mix of signals, the senescence-associated secretory phenotype or SASP, that can provoke inflammation, disarray the surrounding extracellular matrix structures, and change behavior of nearby cells for the worse. Then they destroy themselves, or are destroyed by the immune system — for the most part at least. This is helpful in wound healing, and in small doses helps to reduce cancer incidence by removing those cells most at risk of becoming cancerous. Unfortunately a growing number of these cells linger without being destroyed, more with every passing year, and their presence eventually causes significant dysfunction. That in turn produces age-related disease, frailty, and eventually death. Senescent cells are not the only root cause of aging, but they provide a significant contribution to the downward spiral of health and wellbeing, and even only their own would eventually produce death by aging.

The beneficial aspects of senescent cells seem to require only a transient presence, so the most direct approach to the problem presented by these cells is to destroy them every so often. Build a targeted therapy capable of sweeping senenscent cells from tissues, and make it efficient enough to keep the count of such cells low. That is the way to prevent senescent cells form contributing to age-related disease. Working in mice, researchers have produced results such as functional rejuvenation in aged lungs and extended life span through the targeted destruction of senescent cells. Since perhaps only a few percent of the cells in old tissue are senescent, this targeted destruction can be accomplished with few side-effects beyond those generated by off-target effects of the medication itself.

Continue reading “Piperlongumine as a Senolytic Drug Candidate with Fewer Side-Effects” »

Designing synthetic promoters for safe and precise targeting of dysfunctional “senescent” cells, with the aim of developing senolytic gene therapies to remove them.

Stanford University’s amazing new regenerative medicine facility where the impossible is becoming possible.

The 25,000-square-foot facility, which opened last September, puts Stanford at the forefront of one of medicine’s most important and promising trends: regenerative medicine, which aims to refurbish diseased or damaged tissue using the body’s own healthy cells.

“We’re curing the incurable,” said laboratory director David DiGiusto, who holds a doctorate.

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Decline of the immune system is one of the areas SENS are working on, with just over a week left for the Winter Fundraiser and Triple donation match now is the time to support their work!

Immunosenescence is a key process in aging and rejuvention or replacement of the thymus which gradually wastes away as we age exposing us to pathogens is an important step in dealing with age-related diseases. SENS is working on these problems so if you want to see solutions please consider donating to our Winter Fundraiser today on the link below:

http://www.sens.org/donate

Continue reading “Immune Restoration Results from Placing a Young Thymus into an Aged Mouse” »

Google Tech Talk with the SENS Research Foundation!

Commentary about our recent Google Tech Talk about the MitoSENS project from FightAging!

“As the clock ticks on this year’s SENS rejuvenation research fundraiser — less than two weeks to go now, and plenty left in the matching fund for new donations — it is good to be reminded of the progress that the SENS Research Foundation has accomplished with the charitable funding of recent years. With that in mind, today I’ll point you to a recent Google Tech Talk that provides a layperson’s introduction to one of the projects that our community has funded, fixing the problem of mitochondrial damage in aging. The point of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) research programs is to accelerate progress towards specific forms of therapy that can bring aging under medical control.”

Continue reading “Presenting Mitochondrial Rejuvenation at a Google Tech Talk” »