The Sea Hero Quest Game App Detects Early Symptoms Of Alzheimer's Disease

A memory problem is one of the most notable symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, but it may not be obvious in the early stages of the disease.

17,600 years of research on Alzheimer's

The researchers have come up with a game that can help detect Alzheimer's earlier. Up to now, more than 4.3 million people have downloaded the game application called Sea Hero Quest.

Data generated from two minutes of play equates to five hours of data collected in the laboratory. Because of its popularity, Sea Hero Quest was played the equivalent of more than 117 years in total hours, accounting for 17,600 years of research on Alzheimer's.

The goal of the players is to find the fastest way to a series of control buoys. While navigating labyrinths and icebergs, they provide researchers with scientific data that could be used to study the difference between the genetic predisposition of people with Alzheimer's disease and those of other players.

How People at Risk for Alzheimer's Play "Sea Hero Quest"

In the study published in the journal PNAS, the researchers said that people genetically at risk of developing neurological disease can be identified among those who are not at specific levels of gambling.

The results are important because standard memory and thought tests could not distinguish between the two groups.

The study researcher, Michael Hornberger, of the Norwich School of Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said that carriers of the APOE4 gene, linked to the disease of 39; Alzheimer's, had poorer performances in space navigation. They also tend to use the less efficient routes to achieve control point objectives.

"It's really important because these are people without memory problems," Hornberger said in a statement.

"People without the APOE4 gene traveled about the same distance as the 27,000 people in the baseline score, which was particularly pronounced where the space to navigate was large and open."

Using Sea Hero Quest & # 39; to detect people with genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease

Hornberger said that means that it is possible to detect people with a genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease depending on the way they play. The game also provides researchers with a huge amount of data that can further illuminate Alzheimer's disease.

"In the future, the standard SHQ baseline data can be used to more accurately categorize spatial deficiencies in healthy, high-risk participants in Alzheimer's disease at a more individual level. , "the researchers wrote in their study.

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