The Neureka Project

Neureka gathers data from users and also provides users with the latest in scientific findings relevant to brain health. Users play gamified cognitive tests, complete self-report modules encompassing demographic, lifestyle, family history, and clinical assessment, and participate in a series of “science challenges”. Neureka focuses on the potential for everyday citizens to directly contribute to scientific research on dementia and mental health disorders, while playing games that are fun and engaging. Through playing games on the neureka app, users help scientists move the needle forward in the fight against disorders of the mind.

Data will be collected from participants who voluntary download Neureka from the Google Play/iOS app stores and digitally consent for data to be stored and analysed for research purposes. Participants of all ages, with a minimum age of 18 years old are eligible to take part in the Neureka project. Within the app participants will complete a registration process where they will provide informed consent, followed by providing demographic data (age, gender, country of residence). Participants will then be presented with the option to complete a number of science challenges, which correspond to discrete experiments that are cross-sectional or longitudinal in design, and vary in content (games, self-reports), duration, and effort.

For example, “Risk Factors” is a cross-sectional experiment where users are asked to complete a self-report assessment of their family history of dementia, play 3 gamified cognitive tests, and complete blocks of questionnaires assessing previously identified risk factors for dementia (including measures of sleep, mood, physical health). Another science challenge is “Multi-Mood”, which allows us to examine mood changes over time using experience sampling – we ask users to check in about how they are feeling, in brief assessments gathered twice a day for 8 weeks. Push notifications are used to facilitate the longitudinal study and users have access to a chart depicting their mood changes over time. Other science challenges take the form of quizzes – where we assess how much people know about the science of brain health (“Maintain Your Brain”) and aim to improve science literacy (“Read All About It”).

Participants are free to withdraw from any study at any point with a simple click of a button in the app. Neureka has received ethical approval from the School of Psychology Committee on Research Ethics and is fully GDPR compliant.

Aim

The Neureka Project aims to develop new ways of detecting disorders of the brain early. From mental health conditions to dementia, we want to find out who is at risk and why, so we can develop preventative interventions that can be used the world over. To do this, we are taking research out of the lab and into your phone, through the Neureka app. On the app, you can complete science challenges, play games and tells us about your thoughts, feeling, experiences and lifestyle. Every minute you spend on the app helps researchers move the needle forward in the global fight against disorders of the mind.

Funded by the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), Neureka delivers science direct to the public – we gather data from users and also provide them with the latest in scientific findings relevant to brain health. Users play gamified cognitive tests, complete self-report modules encompassing demographic, lifestyle, family history, and clinical assessment, and participate in a series of “science challenges”. Neureka focuses on the potential for everyday citizens to directly contribute to scientific research on dementia and mental health disorders, while playing games that are fun and engaging. The aim of the project is to utilise smartphone-based cognitive and self-report assessment via the Neureka app to (i) develop scalable tools for detecting future risk of disorders of the brain (dementia and mental health conditions), (ii) iteratively improve existing definitions of psychiatric problems through data and theory-driven methods, and (iii) improve our understanding of the mechanisms that confer risk for disorders of the brain.

Needed equipment

To use the Neureka app participants need access to a smartphone.

Created March 3, 2021, 10:35 a.m.

Updated March 3, 2021, 10:35 a.m.

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Trinity College Dublin

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