EyeWire is an online community of “citizen
neuroscientists” who map neural connections by playing a Serious Game. Similarly
to EteRNA
and Foldit,
EyeWire enlists collective intelligence to solve scientific problems.
By playing EyeWire,
you help map the retinal connectome (connections between cells in the brain) and
contribute to the neuroscience research conducted by Sebastian Seung's
Computational Neuroscience Lab at MIT.
Inside the
retina lies an incredibly dense tangle of interconnected neurons. If
researchers can map the many connections between these cells, they will be
closer to understanding how vision works.
Citizen
scientists can help map the connections of a neural network. No specialized
knowledge of neuroscience is required. Their input will help scientists
understand how the retina functions. It will also be used by engineers to
improve the underlying computational technology, eventually making it powerful
enough to detect "miswirings" of the brain that are hypothesized to
underlie disorders like autism and schizophrenia.