Dear Colleagues,
You may have heard of Mozak, a citizen science project that presents raw image stacks of neuronal morphology from optical microscopy to players through a videogame platform enabling them to digitally reconstruct the corresponding dendritic and axonal trees in 3D (Roskam & Popovic, Neuron'16, doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.10.045). With many researchers housebound all around the globe during these challenging times, we are launching a friendly competition. We're inviting teams from different labs and neuroscience departments anywhere in the world to enter http://www.mozak.science during an upcoming week and play against other labs (and against many citizen scientists!). Will you, your peers, trainees, colleagues, and students rise to the challenge and participate in this international neural tracing effort? It's a unique opportunity to purposefully connect, joyfully focus on neurons, and advance science! We might start as early as next week (April 6-10) if feasible or the following week (April 13-17) otherwise. If you are interested in forming a team, just email me your timing preference, if any, at ascoli@gmu.edu. Please let me know if you have any questions. Best,

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Giorgio Ascoli, PhD
University Professor
Bioengineering Department, Volgenau School of Engineering
Neuroscience Program, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
Director, Center for Neural Informatics, Structures, & Plasticity
MS2A1 - George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 (USA)
Ph. +1(703)993-4383/+1(703)673-8894
Author of "Trees of the Brain, Roots of the Mind" (MIT Press, 2015)
Founding Editor-in-Chief, Neuroinformatics