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The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014

October 7, 2014


The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 was divided, one half awarded to John O'Keefe, the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain".


University College Lodon, United Kingdom
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
 
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Dr. John M. O’Keefe, Dr. May-Britt Moser and Dr. Edvard I. Moser for their discoveries of nerve cells in the brain that enable a sense of place and navigation. These discoveries are ground breaking and provide insights into how mental functions are represented in the brain and how the brain can compute complex cognitive functions and behaviour. An internal map of the environment and a sense of place are needed for recognizing and remembering our environment and for navigation. This navigational ability, which requires integration of multi-modal sensory information, movement execution and memory capacities, is one of the most complex of brain functions. The work of the 2014 Laureates has radically altered our understanding of these functions. John O’Keefe discovered place cells in the hippocampus that signal position and provide the brain with spatial memory capacity. May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser discovered in the medial entorhinal cortex, a region of the brain next to hippocampus, grid cells that provide the brain with an internal coordinate system essential for navigation. Together, the hippocampal place cells and the entorhinal grid cells form interconnected nerve cell networks that are critical for the computation of spatial maps and navigational tasks. The work by John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser has dramatically changed our understanding of how fundamental cognitive functions are performed by neural circuits in the brain and shed new light onto how spatial memory might be created.


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