EyeWire is a crowd-sourced, game-based learning project created by Sebastian Seung and a team at MIT with “the conviction that anyone, anywhere, should be able to participate in the greatest adventure of our time: exploring the brain.” By playing the game you contribute to neuroscience research.
The project has been running online unofficially for some time, but it launches officially on December 10th — J Day. Until now, the information collected has helped them perfect the game. Now the data will be used “to map the connections of the J cell, a particular type of retinal neuron. The larger and more active the community, the faster they’ll complete the mapping and make exciting discoveries about how the retina functions in visual perception.”
So .. who is Sebastian Seung? He’s the connectome guy. His “hypothesis [is] that personality traits, memories, mental disorders, and other aspects of personal identity are encoded in the pattern of connections between the brain’s neurons.
In preparation for J Day, Seung and his team ask that you to:
- Get 3 friends to register as EyeWire members.
- Share this fun 1 minute trailer video over email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The new social sharing buttons on the site will also come in handy.
- Make sure to complete the tutorial before J Day on December 10th.
P.S. —–>>>>>> You’re also invited to the pre-launch Google+ Hangout on Saturday, December 8th at noon EST. More details will follow by email when you register. You can also check out the EyeWire Blog and join the conversation on Facebook.
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