The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded to three scientists who discovered the brain’s “GPS system”.
UK-based researcher Prof. John O’Keefe as well as May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser share the award.
They discovered how the brain knows where we are and is able to navigate from one place to another.
Their findings may help explain why Alzheimer’s disease patients cannot recognise their surroundings.
“The discoveries have solved a problem that has occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries,” the Nobel Assembly said.
O’Keefe’s work showed that a set of nerve cells became activated whenever a rat was in one location in a room. A different set of cells were active when the rat was in a different area. O’Keefe argued these “place cells” – located in the hippocampus – formed a map within the brain.
Read full, original article: Nobel Prize for the brain’s GPS discovery
