This video game gives people the chance to become citizen scientists.
A US-based non-profit, Human Computation Institute, has developed a video game to help crowdsource Alzheimer’s disease research.
Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that usually affects people over 60 years of age. It slowly destroys their memory and thinking skills, and eventually their ability to carry out the simplest tasks.
The game called Stall Catchers helps research at the Schaffer-Nishimura Laboratory at Cornell University in the US where scientists have been trying to understand the role of reduced brain blood flow in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientists feel that reduced blood flow in the brain, and the lack of oxygen and nutrients it entails, could be related to cognitive deficits and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, they feel that studying reduced blood flow to the brain is key to understanding how Alzheimer’s disease damages the organ.
Scientists are studying the possible mechanisms that lead to reduced blood flow in the brains of mice that have Alzheimer’s disease. The capillaries are blocked usually by white blood cells that stick to the walls of the blood vessels. Scientists need to look at a huge amount of data to figure out the mechanism of the disease. But this can only be done manually, and is immensely time-consuming.
This is where the video game comes in. It enables an amateur to study videos of blood vessels in the brains of mice and spot clogged capillaries, or stalls. Participants get points for each stall they find.
Nearly 1,000 users have played Stall Catchers so far, reported Science News. The game can be played here. Here is the video introducing the game and a tutorial:
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