UC San Francisco researchers are using online gaming to study the brain and find potential cures for neurological diseases.

Neurological diseases are a growing concern in the United States. Statistics show that over 6 million people in the country suffer from some kind of degenerative neurological condition. The most common diseases include Parkinson, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). While there are many treatments available that help reduce symptoms of these diseases, no definite cure has been found yet.

Researchers argue that to eradicate these mental disorders completely, a proper understanding of the brain is required. UC San Francisco researchers are currently conducting a study where they will use online gamers to find cures for neurological diseases.

This week marks the beginning of the Brain Health Registry online database, which streamlines a process to help recruit subjects for certain brain diseases.  Here, people can voluntarily sign up to become subjects in the study. Most often than not, trials fail or don't see the light of day because they don't receive enough funds to recruit subjects for the study. With Brain Health Registry, researchers will have a ready pool of participants to conduct their study on. The project hopes to collect data from 100,000 participants by the end of 2017

"This registry is an innovative 21st century approach to science with tremendous potential," said project founder and principal investigator Michael Weiner, MD, via a press release. "The greatest obstacles to finding a cure for Alzheimer's and other brain disorders are the cost and time involved in clinical trials. This project aims to cut both and greatly accelerate the search for cures."

Every six months, participants will be invited to play online games from their homes. During this time, researchers will collect essential data and use it to study brains as the participants grow older.

UC San Francisco researchers are the most recent addition to the list of scientists looking for ways that can benefit people suffering from neurological diseases. Only recently, Newcastle University researchers announced that they were investigating how Google Glass could be used to aid dementia and Alzheimer's disease patients.