Alzheimer’s publication profiles MindCrowd

A website that specializes in Alzheimer’s and caregiving for those with the disease featured MindCrowd in an article. A writer from alzlive.com took the MindCrowd test and spoke with Dr. Matt Huentelman about the aim of the project.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

“I sit hunched over my laptop, fingers prepped to pounce on the space bar. I wait anxiously for a red ball to pop up on my screen and, when it does, I slam the keyboard.

It feels like I’m playing a video game—but I’m not. I’m helping to research human cognition.

The team behind MindCrowd, the massive online cognitive study I’m taking part in, is hoping a million more people worldwide will spend 10 minutes taking the same test. With the knowledge they glean from the results, they plan to better understand age’s effect on memory and use that information to help prevent diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Unprecedented in its size and scope, the project is a product of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), a Phoenix-based non-profit dedicated to developing earlier diagnostic abilities. It has two phases: The first, launched in June 2013, seeks to get one million participants to take the brainteaser and share basic information like sex, age and education; the second, set to begin soon, will feature more intensive testing and ask for more detailed personal information.

By studying participants’ scores in relation to their personal information, TGen aims to learn how genetic factors can influence memory.

Read the full article here.