One of the winners of Nobel Prize in Medicine 2014, John O'Keefe is an American British neuroscientist and a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the Department of Anatomy (University College London). The winners May-Britt Moser and Edvard I Moser are husband and wife. They both are neuroscientists and Founding Directors of The Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory (KI/CBM) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway.
They 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. Initiated by John O' Keefe in 1971,
by discovering the first component of this positioning system. He found
that a type of nerve cell in an area of the brain called the hippocampus that
was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. Other
nerve cells were activated when the rat was at other places. O'Keefe
concluded that these "place cells" formed a map of the room. More than
three decades later, in 2005, May‐Britt and Edvard Moser discovered another key component of the brain's positioning system. They identified another type of nerve cell, which they called "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 to navigate.
This research has solved a problem that has occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries "how does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment ?"
The physics, chemistry, literature and peace awards will be announced
later this week. The economics prize will be announced next Monday.
