Stall Catchers

Alzheimer’s Awareness Month (September) 2024: Don’t miss out! Track your progress on the leaderboard: https://scistarter.org/go/Alz-Month-Challenge

Help scientists analyze movies from the brain affected with Alzheimer’s - are the blood vessels flowing or stalled?

Today, there is no treatment for Alzheimer’s. Together with researchers at Cornell University, we have a goal to change that. We’re focusing on one aspect of the disease: reduced blood flow in the brain. It’s a symptom that has been known for years, but until now, nobody knew why it happens.

Our collaborators recently discovered that stalls (clogged blood vessels in the brain) are responsible for this blood flow reduction in mice with Alzheimer’s. By reducing the number of stalls, the lab was able to restore memory and reduce other cognitive symptoms in mice.

But to fully understand how stalls are contributing to Alzheimer’s and discover potential treatment targets, we need to get through lots of data. We need your keen eyes for that - even the most powerful computer technologies can’t do that accurately enough yet. Without the help of the crowd, this process could take decades.

In Stall Catchers we “catch” stalls by looking at movies from the brain of mice and scoring blood vessels as “flowing” or “stalled”. The game is easy enough to learn, and we help you out in the beginning! And even if you get a couple of questions wrong - don’t worry. Each vessel will be seen by other citizen scientists so we can figure out the right answers together.

With your help, we could potentially find an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease in just a few years - quick enough to make a difference in the lives of people who have the disease now.