A part of aging is memory loss, but losing every detail of your personality, your family and friends are worst. The complexity in understanding the Alzheimer's disease has led researchers to a live game called "Stall Catchers," which will help them resolve the disease's unlikely mechanism.
Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia that leads problems with patient's memory, thinking ability and even the behavior. This is a serious illness which intervenes with patient's daily life with people aged 65 and older. The online game "Stall Catchers" is designed to help the researchers find answers in occurrence of significant blood flow reduction in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's.
According to Science News, the biomedical engineers at Cornell University and Human Computation Institute or HCI have collaborated. The team created a game platform called "Stall Catchers" that will allow the public to join the research by playing the game online.
Analyzing the blood flow in mice is time consuming that is why the researchers have come up with the idea in engaging the public with their research through "Stall Catchers." According to the associate professor Chris Schaffer, PhD, finding the stalled blood vessels cannot be automated and can only be done "through manual image inspection."
That's where "Stall Catchers" player comes in. Players are allowed to watch a video of real blood cells of mouse brains and point out stalls, clogged capillaries where blood no longer flows. Players can earn points whenever they identify clogged blood vessels. Each video will be played and checked by other players as well to see if clogged capillaries have been inspected thoroughly.
In a press release, EyesOnALZ principal investigator, Dr. Pietro Michelucci said that volunteerism has been proven to be effective and a "powerful tool for analysis and discovery." The public support for "Stall Catchers" is a strategy that will help researchers speed up their analysis and one day cure or stop Alzheimer's disease.
Meanwhile, "Stall Catchers" is accessible on stallcatchers.com and can be played with a computer, tablet or a smartphone. To date, there are more than 700 users played the game that will help generate data to fight Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is ranked as the sixth cause of death in the United States, CDC reported.
