An Eyewirer’s Guide to Naming Newly Discovered Cells
29,276 Eyewirers contributed to reconstructing nearly 400 ganglion cells in a recent Seung Lab+Eyewirers publication that discovered 6 new cell types. Those who mapped over 50 cubes during the Countdown to Neuropia from October, 2014 to Aug 2015 are eligible to nickname the newly discovered neurons. Naming will work in rounds as detailed below.
You can see the full list of Eyewire contributors here — use Ctrl/Cmd+F to search for your username and the total # of cubes you submitted.
Voting works in six rounds and begins on the first Monday of the Month starting June 4. Each round is divided up into stages. The first stage is name solicitation. If you submitted at least 1,000 cubes in Eyewire between 10/2014 and 8/2015, you will qualify to nominate at least one name. This is different from Eyewire marathons: those are just a single cell. This will name an entire class of cell.
Players who qualify to nominate a name will receive a form via email or in-game notification. Depending on how many names are submitted in each round, the players who nominate will be invited to a closed primary that will yield no more than 10 final names to be voted on by the broader community of players who submitted at least 50 cubes. Each stage of voting will last one week. In the event of a tie in the final vote, a runoff will be held.
Chosen neuron nicknames will live on forever in the museum and hopefully future publications.
Round System
If you completed 15,000 cubes, you qualify to nominate a name for 5 rounds (June – Oct)
7,500 cubes: you qualify to nominate a name for 4 rounds (July – Oct)
5,000 cubes: you qualify to nominate a name for 3 rounds (Aug – Oct)
2,500 cubes: you qualify to nominate a name for 2 rounds (Sept – Oct)
1,000 cubes: you qualify to nominate a name for 1 round (Oct)
The final round is exclusive to players who were acting Scouts, Scythes, Mentors and Mods from 10/2014 to 8/2015.
August 2018: Type 27 is now named Theia
Qualification to Nominate a Name: 25 Eyewirers who played at least 15,000 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Qualification to Vote: All Eyewirers who played at least 50 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Details: bistratified direction selective ganglion cell
Sept 2018: Type 2o is named Hyperion
Qualification to Nominate a Name: 69 Eyewirers who played at least 7,500 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Qualification to Vote: All Eyewirers who played at least 50 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Details: direction selective ganglion cell with dendritic arbor found primarily in the outer section of the retinal inner plexiform layer
November 2018: Type 5to is now named Arachne
Qualification to Nominate a Name: 122 Eyewirers who played at least 5,000 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Qualification to Vote: All Eyewirers who played at least 50 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Details: ganglion cell with dendritic arbor found primarily in the mid to outer section of the retinal inner plexiform layer
September 2019: Type 1no
Qualification to Nominate a Name: 276 Eyewirers who played at least 2,500 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Qualification to Vote: All Eyewirers who played at least 50 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Details: direction selective ganglion cell with dendritic arbor found at the deepest outer edge of the retinal inner plexiform layer
October 2019: Type 1ni
Qualification to Nominate a Name: 600 Eyewirers who played at least 1,000 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Qualification to Vote: All Eyewirers who played at least 50 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Details: direction selective ganglion cell with dendritic arbor found at the outer depth of the retinal inner plexiform layer
Scout Cell / November 2019: Type 85
Qualification to Nominate a Name: Scouts, Scythes, and Mentors who flagged or reaped a cube or helped another player by watching in-cube between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Qualification to Vote: All Eyewirers who played at least 50 cubes between 10/2014 and 8/2015
Details: bistratified ganglion cell with dendritic arbor found at the center and inner region of the retinal inner plexiform layer
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You may be wondering why you had to do so many cubes in order to nominate a name. We ran some numbers and it turns out that a small fraction of players contribute a disproportionately large amount of amount of effort toward mapping neurons in Eyewire so the threshold is set to reward accordingly.
