About Eyewire, A Game to Map the Brain
Eyewire is a game to map the brain in collaboration with the Seung Lab at Princeton. Anyone can play and you need no scientific background — over 200,000 people from 145 countries already do. Together we are mapping the 3D structure of neurons; advancing our quest to understand ourselves.
By joining Eyewire, you can help map the connectome, starting with connections between retinal neurons. Eyewire gameplay advances neuroscience by helping researchers discover how neurons connect and network to process information. You also help develop advanced artificial intelligence and computational technologies for mapping the connectome.
How it works
In Eyewire, players are challenged to map branches of a neuron from one side of a cube to the other. Think of it as a 3D puzzle. Players scroll through the cube (measuring about 4.5 microns per side or ~10x smaller than the average width of a human hair) and reconstruct neurons in volumetric segments with the help of an artificial intelligence algorithm developed at Seung Lab.
For fun. For science!
As you trace through each neuron you’ll rack up points based on speed, skill, and accuracy. Trace your way to the top of the leaderboard, engage in themed competitions against your Eyewire friends, and earn badges to show off your Eyewire achievements. If you’re good enough you can climb the ranks to Advanced Player, Scout, and the prestigious Order of the Scythe.
Look out for special in-game competitions as well. Eyewire holds a weekly Friday “Happy Hour” (2-4 PM ET), a Thursday “Happy Hour 180” (8-10 AM ET), biweekly VS competitions, and bimonthly themed competitions full of mini games that offer competitors limited edition badges, loads of points bonuses, and occasionally themed swag.
Eyewire is also a great way to meet friends from across the globe. Some of our players have even met up in person. Check out these Featured Eyewirers to learn a little more about the members of our favorite online community!
Eyewire 101
Sebastian Seung’s TEDTalk:
In the news
If Sebastian Seung succeeds in mapping the human brain, could we live forever as data? http://t.co/AyA013C1wg https://t.co/3U9IyBDIN2
— NYT Magazine (@NYTmag) January 8, 2015
How thousands of online gamers teamed up to help us understand the brain: http://t.co/SswNW4t08q — The NPR Science Desk (@nprscience) May 5, 2014
EyeWire Video Gamers Help Untangle the Retina’s Space-Time Secrets http://t.co/5u5x3R3zlh — NBC News Science (@NBCNewsScience) May 4, 2014
Over 70,000 have played the ‘Eyewire’ game that trains computers to map the brain http://t.co/CKqWmFX01Z — Forbes Tech News (@ForbesTech) August 19, 2013
Hundreds of articles have been written about Eyewire since it launched in Dec 2012. Find a list of prominent publications here.
Eyewire Team
Founder & Principal Investigator: Sebastian Seung
Executive Director: Amy R. Sterling
Full Stack Developers: William Silversmith, Chris Jordan
Lead Designer: Alex Norton
Illustrator: Tyler Scagliarini
Game Masters: Rachel Prentki, Marissa Sorek, Celia David, Doug Bland, Devon Jones
Illustration, Animation, and Graphic Design Interns: Hilary Bouvier, Jordi Valladares
Princeton University, Seung Lab
See seunglab.org website.
Former Team Members
MIT UROPs: Aaron Hammond, Dmetri Hayes, Michael Purcaro, David Jia, Brett Warne, and Rachel Shearer participated in early work on software development. Claire O’Connell (edX fellowship).
Development Team: Mark Richardson, Leandro Burnes, Srini Turaga, Matt Susskind, Katya Radul, Matt Balkam
Neuroimaging: Ashwin Vishwanathan
Neuroscience: Jinseop Kim
Backend Development: Shang Mu
Algorithms, AI, and Data Structures: Aleks Zlateski, Kisuk Lee
Development Intern: Alec Jordan
Game Masters & Tracers: Lyndsey Trawinski, Aleks Ostojic, Ross Avery, Sean Temple, Mike Weiss, Ian Danskin, Joanna Wheatley
Illustration & Graphic Design: Beth Almeida, Luke Hollyer, Amy Concannon, Stewart Holmes, Hannah Choi, Chengcheng Xiao, Nicole Benson, Montakan Namthong, Dom Civiello, Karyll Catubig, Daniela Gamba, Grace Emmet, Maddi Coyne, Soyeon Lim, Vivian Zhang
Music & Sound Design: John Smith, Julian Samal
Korean Translation & Community Support: Kyung Lim, Mina Kim
Shoutout to Matt Irwin and the team at Indicated.co, who created Neuron Safari, Eyewire’s pioneering virtual reality experience.
Daniel Berger has assisted with 3D renderings. Eyewire is based on images of the retina acquired at the Max Planck Institute of Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany by Kevin Briggman, Moritz Helmstaedter, and Winfried Denk using a method known as serial block-face scanning electron microscopy.
Eyewire is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). It was originally made possible by support from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Max Planck Society.
Special Thanks: Elizabeth Bailey, Rachel Cuozzo, Alan Diaz-Romero, Emilio Gonzalez, Jonathan Gootenberg, Shaunak Kishore, Yinqing Li, Greg Lubin, Tomer Mangoubi, Claire O’Connell, Ami Patel, Laya Rajan, Christopher Smith, Jacob Steinhardt, Jessica Sun, Arvind Thiagarajan, and Jason Toy.
All Eyewire images, screenshots and animations are licensed Creative Commons-Share Alike, non-commercial. We kindly request that you contact support at eyewire dot org before publishing any of our images.
