Stall Catchers

Stall Catchers is an online game that anyone can play - no experience necessary. In the game, you look at movies from the brains of mice and try to identify vessels as flowing or stalled. This helps to speed up Alzheimer's disease research at Cornell University.

Stall Catchers is part of the EyesOnALZ project. The game was built on one of the oldest volunteer thinking projects: stardust@home, and is using the Virtual Microscope developed by their team. Who knew stardust and blood vessels could be so similar?

Currently, our catchers range from 6 to 88 years old. A large part of our community includes middle school students, seniors, caregivers and Alzheimer’s patients themselves.

The game is easy to grasp, and we walk you through in the beginning. Check out the 'How to' section in the main menu if you need help at any time. Don't worry about making mistakes - each blood vessel is analysed by multiple catchers, and we ensure we generate reliable crowd answers in the end.

EyesOnALZ is a citizen science project developed by the Human Computation Institute. The project enables everyone to contribute to Alzheimer’s disease research and speed up the search for a treatment. Our first citizen science game - Stall Catchers - was launched in October 2016 and now gathers thousands of volunteers.

The idea was born in 2015, when by a lucky coincidence, Pietro Michelucci met Chris Schaffer, whose lab was in need of citizen scientists’ help. The project was funded by the BrightFocus Foundation and officially began in early 2016.

EyesOnALZ includes collaborators from the Schaffer-Nishimura Lab at Cornell University, stardust@home team at U.C. Berkeley and SciStarter.com. Previous collaborators include Sebastian Seung’s Laboratory at Princeton University, WiredDifferently and others.

EyesOnALZ and Stall Catchers are being developed by the Human Computation Institute, and supported by a team of collaborators, advisors and volunteers from Cornell University, UC Berkeley, SciStarter, and elsewhere worldwide.

The EyesOnALZ Android app is being developed for Human Computation Institute in partnership with Games For Health Europe by Game Solutions Lab.

EyesOnALZ is supported by the BrightFocus foundation and its generous donors. Learn more about their Alzheimer's Disease Research Program.