Space–time wiring specificity supports direction selectivity in the retina

Abstract

How does the mammalian retina detect motion? This classic problem in visual neuroscience has remained unsolved for 50 years. In search of clues, we reconstructed Off-type starburst amacrine cells (SACs) and bipolar cells (BCs) in serial electron microscopic images with help from EyeWire, an online community of “citizen neuroscientists.” Based on quantitative analyses of contact area and branch depth in the retina, we found evidence that one BC type prefers to wire with a SAC dendrite near the SAC soma, while another BC type prefers to wire far from the soma. The near type is known to lag the far type in time of visual response. A mathematical model shows how such “space-time wiring specificity” could endow SAC dendrites with receptive fields that are oriented in space-time and therefore respond selectively to stimuli that move in the outward direction from the soma.

Exploring the quantum speed limit with computer games

“…Gamification is an effective tool for attracting citizen scientists to provide solutions to research problems. While citizen science games Foldit [3], EteRNA [4] and EyeWire [5] have been used successfully to study protein and RNA folding and neuron mapping, so far gamification has not been applied to problems in quantum physics. Does the fact that everyday experiences are based on classical physics hinder the use of non-expert citizen scientists in the realm of quantum mechanics?…”

“…Common examples are visual pattern recognition [17] and catching a flying ball subject to wind and air resistance [1]. Citizen science projects such as Foldit [3], EyeWire [5] and Galaxy Zoo [18] employ these human skills to solve highly complex research problems via gamification. We ask whether citizen science projects can be extended from these puzzle and pattern recognition tasks to dynamic challenges, and whether this approach can be implemented on quantum physics problems.…”

Big Data Is the Answer … But What Is the Question?

“…These projects have already resulted in numerous publications, often in high-profile journals, and following every standard of a scientific publication-except that they include collective and distributed authors, such as "the Eyewirer" in a recent publication in Nature. 67 Big Data, because it is often too big to be fully exploited by those who have produced it, is increasingly made publicly available, opening the possibility of a new kind of citizen science in which lay people act not merely as observers or sensors, but also as analysts. Citizens have long contributed to the making of Big Data, as observers of ephemeral comets and migrating birds, and have even engaged in their own research projects, as Etienne Benson shows in this volume.…”

Whale of a crowd: Quantifying the effectiveness of crowd-sourced serious games

“…This small audience is very important for CSSGs to attract and maintain, given their small audience overall. [2] that more than 100,000 registered players from more than 130 countries had contributed to their experiment.…”

“…This transformation in communication has led people to envision crowd-sourcing as a potentially cost-effective method for tackling tasks that previously can only be performed by domain experts. Two highly-publicized executions of this vision are the Duolingo portal [1] and the EyeWire project [2]. The ultimate goal behind the free-of-charge Duolingo portal is to translate the web into all major languages, and the "crowd" is made of people who desire both to learn a foreign language and to support the cause of making useful web content universally accessible.…”