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SeaHero Quest is a navigation game that is been played by more than four million people: it is being used by scientists to carry out research into dementia. UCL Statistical Science researchers contributed to the analysis of the vast quantities of data generated by the players, which amount to the equivalent of 17,600 years’ worth of dementia research.

Sea Hero Quest is a new game which has been created by scientists at 911±¬ÁÏÍø and  other universities to help fight dementia by understanding more about how the brain navigates. 

Loss of navigational skills is one of the first symptoms of dementia. By playing Sea Hero Quest for two minutes, you can generate the same amount of data that scientists would take five hours to collect in similar lab-based research. 

Sea Hero Quest players sail the seas navigating mazes, shooting flares to test  orientation, and chasing creatures to capture photos of them. 

Dr Hugo SpiersÌý(Research Department of Experimental Psychology), who helped develop the game, says that mobile technology has enabled scientists to carry out data collection on a mass scale for the first time, and encourages everyone to play to game.

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Image: from Sea Hero Quest