Zoran Popović knows a thing or two about video games. A computer science professor at the University of Washington, Dr. Popović has worked on software algorithms that make computer-controlled characters move realistically in games like the science-fiction shooter "Destiny."
But while those games are entertainment designed to grab players by their adrenal glands, Dr. Popović's latest creation asks players to trace lines over fuzzy images with a computer mouse. It has a slow pace with dreamy music that sounds like the ambient soundtrack inside a New Age bookstore.
The point? To advance neuroscience.
Since November, thousands of people have played the game, "Mozak," which uses common tricks of the medium — points, leveling up and leader boards that publicly rank the performance of players — to crowdsource the creation of three-dimensional models of neurons.
The Center for Game Science, a group at the University of Washington that Dr. Popović oversees, developed the game in collaboration with the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a nonprofit research organization founded by Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, that is seeking a better understanding of the brain. Dr. Popović had previously received wide attention in the scientific community for a puzzle game called "Foldit," released nearly a decade ago, that harnesses the skills of players to solve riddles about the structure of proteins.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/science/citizen-science-video-game-neurons.html?
