Shai Efrati

Shai Efrati (שי אפרתי, born 1971) is a physician from Israel and an associate professor at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University as well as director of the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at the Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center in Israel. As of 2008, Efrati has served as chairman of the Israeli Society for Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine. Efrati is also Co-Founder and Chair of Medical Advisory Board for Aviv Scientific.

Education and career
Efrati completed his M.D. at Ben Gurion University between 1994 and 2000. He later completed his residency, specializing in internal medicine, between 2001 and 2004, with the Department of Internal Medicine of Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center. In 2003, he continued his diving and hyperbaric medicine training at the Israel Naval Institute in Haifa. He specialized in nephrology. From 2005 to 2007, he was the head of the Nephrology Division and the Head of the Research and Development unit at Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center since 2015.

Efrati is co-founder and Scientific Director of Hospitech Respiration Ltd., founded in 2006 and based in Israel. The company engages in the development of respiratory tract management devices for mechanically ventilated patients. It is based on the AnapnoGuard system, a continuous closed-loop control system that prevents complications related to prolonged mechanical ventilation by continuously monitoring CO2 levels above the cuff and adjusting cuff pressure required to maintain the seal at the appropriate pressure.

Efrati is co-founder and chair of the Medical Advisory Board of Aviv Scientific, which leverages Efrati's research on HBOT to improve brain and physical performance in healthy aging adults.

Efrati is a founding member of the Global Aging Consortium initiated by Aviv Scientific, which includes internationally recognized researchers to advance innovations in healthy aging: Dr. Michael Roizen, Dr. Nir Barzilai, Dr. Eric Verdin, Dr. Joseph Maroon.

Research work
In 2008, Efrati founded and now directs the Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research at Tel Aviv University and Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center, where he oversees and collaborates with other scientists and manages a sizeable hyperbaric medicine and research facility. The center currently treats up to 200 patients per day.

Efrati has initiated a research program focusing on neuroplasticity and cognitive rehabilitation by the use of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). In his clinical studies, it was proved that HBOT can induce neuroplasticity and improves neurocognitive functions in post stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) years after the acute Insult. The clinical results gained from the research program have led to ongoing cooperation between a multidisciplinary team focused on the regenerative effects of hyperbaric oxygen in various brain injuries such as stroke, post-concussion syndrome (PCS), Traumatic Brain Injury, Long Covid, severe emotional trauma, PTSD, Alzheimer's disease as well with a special focus on age-related functional decline.

In his studies, it was demonstrated that HBOT can induce neuroplasticity and significant clinical improvement in patients with fibromyalgia who have a history of childhood sexual abuse.

In his recent study, HBOT was shown to induce cognitive enhancements in healthy aging adults via mechanisms involving regional changes in Cerebral blood flow. The main improvements include attention, information processing speed and executive functions, which generally decline with aging.

In his Aging study, on November 18, 2020, for the first time in humans, two key biological hallmarks of aging, telomere length shortening and accumulation of senescent cells, were shown to be reversed with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT).

Since December 2021, he started one of the most comprehensive studies on post-COVID patients.The findings revealed that patients treated with HBOT experienced significant improvements in their overall cognitive function and within specific brain regions responsible for attention and executive function. They also showed enhancements in energy levels, sleep patterns, psychiatric symptoms, and pain management. The positive effects of this unique treatment protocol are attributed to neuroplasticity and increased brain perfusion in areas related to cognitive and emotional functions.

The second study employed a novel functional MRI technique and identified significant changes in brain connectivity and functional networks in the HBOT group compared to the placebo group. Furthermore, a third study in 2023 demonstrated that HBOT could improve cardiac functions in post-COVID patients as well.