Three neuroscientists have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of “an inner GPS that makes it possible to know where we are and find our way,” according to Ole Kiehn, a Nobel committee member.
John O’Keefe, a British-American professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College in London, made the first discovery of the positioning system, in 1971. Through experiments with rats, O’Keefe found that a type of nerve cells formed maps of the room that the rats were placed in, as certain nerve cells were activated when the rats were in a specific location, and other nerve cells were activated once the rats moved to different locations. O’Keefe called them ‘place cells’.
In 2005, May-Britt Moser and her husband, Edvard Moser, found ‘grid cells,’ “that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding. Their subsequent research showed how place and grid cells make it possible to determine position and how to navigate,’ according to the Nobel Prize website.
“Knowledge about the brain’s positioning system may, therefore, help us understand the mechanism underpinning the devastating spatial loss that affects people with this [Alzheimer’s] disease,” the Nobel Assembly said.
Bill Harris, the head of physiology, development, and neuroscience at University of Cambridge, said that these discoveries have “opened the door into problems of place member and how we learn and remember routs of navigation, and what sleep and dreams may be doing for memory and performance,” quoted Reuters.
Reuters further reports that the Moser couple did not expect to receive the Nobel Prize for their work, and that their discovery was dismissed and even scoffed at when it was initially released.
“I am so proud of all the support that we have had. People have believed in us, in what we have been doing, and now this is the reward,” May-Britt Moser told Reuters.
