The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three scientists for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.
The Nobel laureates have discovered an “inner GPS” in the brain that makes it possible to orient ourselves in space, demonstrating a cellular basis for higher cognitive function. The discovery can help answer how humans know where they are, how they find the way from one place to another and how they store this information in such a way that it can be immediately found.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the award Monday. One half will be awarded to John O’Keefe, PhD, an American-British professor of cognitive neuroscience and the director of the Sainsbury Wellcomme Centre in Neural Circuits and Behavior at the University of London. The other half will be awarded to two Norwegian scientists—May-Britt Moser, PhD, a professor of neuroscience and the director of the Centre for Neural Computation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and her husband Edvard Moser, PhD, also a professor at the university and the director of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience.
Read more about the winners and their discoveries at the Nobel Prize website.
