You can try the first discovery and the 3D controls now. Stella unlocks every stage.
Become one signal and travel the quarter second between a flash on the screen and the movement of your finger. Measure your own reaction time, then cross the threshold wall, leap along a myelinated axon, bridge a 20 nm gap and watch a spine grow, and see what the quarter second is made of.
This is a thin slice of the motor cortex, the strip just in front of the top of your head that sends the commands to move. Nerve cells stand like a forest, yet only a handful are coloured. The Golgi stain, invented in the 19th century, for reasons still unknown colours only about 1–5% of cells. That is exactly why one cell’s whole branching shape can be seen. Your brain holds about 86 billion of these nerve cells. On this journey you become a single signal, born inside the large pyramidal cell standing in front. Before we set out, let’s measure how fast you are.
Golgi stain: BrainFacts.org, “How a Tissue Stain Revolutionized .
When the thicket flashes, press the button as fast as you can. We measure three times and use the middle value.
About a quarter of a second passes between the flash and your finger moving. How much of it is the signal actually running along nerves? You will find out at the end.
If you skip, the journey uses a typical 263 ms
Includes the delay of your screen and finger. Not a medical or ability test.
You can try the first discovery and the 3D controls now. Stella unlocks every stage.
