Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to three who discovered “inner GPS in the brain”

A British-American scientist and a Norwegian research couple were honoured with this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering “an inner GPS in the brain” allows us to find our surroundings.

John O’Keefe (75) and Moser family -May-Britt Moser (51) and Edvard I. Moser (52) will share prize money of $1.1 million. One half of the prize money would go to John O’Keefe and the other half will go to team of May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain”.

Announcing the award, the Nobel committee said, “This year´s Nobel Laureates have discovered a positioning system, an “inner GPS” in the brain that makes it possible to orient ourselves in space, demonstrating a cellular basis for higher cognitive function.”

The “inner GPS” system which they discovered helps us know our surroundings, where we are? It helps us to find “the way from one place to another” and “how can we store this information in such a way that we can immediately find the way the next time we trace the same path?

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