British-US scientist John O'Keefe and married couple May-Britt and Edvard Moser from Norway have won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the brain's 'inner GPS'.
The 'place cells' and 'grid cells' they discovered make it possible for our brains to work out where we are .
The Nobel Assembly said the discoveries show how the brain creates 'a map of the space surrounding us and how we can navigate our way through a complex environment.' O'Keefe, of University College London, discovered the first component of this positioning system in 1971 when he found that a certain type of nerve cell was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room.
Thirty-four years later May-Britt and Edvard Moser, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, identified another type of nerve cell that generates a co-ordinate system for precise path-finding, the assembly said.
O'Keefe was awarded half of the 8m Swedish krona (around £700,000) prize while the other two winners receive a quarter each.
John Stein, a professor of physiology at Oxford University, said: 'This is great news and well deserved. I remember how great was the scoffing in the early 1970s when John first described 'place cells' ... 'Bound to be an artifact', 'He clearly underestimates rats' sense of smell' were typical reactions. Now, like so many ideas that were at first highly controversial, people say 'Well that's obvious!''
The Nobel assembly said that knowledge about the brain's positioning system may 'help us understand the mechanism underpinning the devastating spatial memory loss' that affects people with Alzheimer's disease.
'May-Britt and Edvard's research lies at the very heart of the cognitive-neuroscience enterprise,' Stanislas Dehaene, who studies consciousness at the Collège de France in Paris told Nature. 'They are trying to understand the neural codes for cognition - and so unite biology with computer science and even philosophy.'
May-Britt Moser is the 11th woman to win the medicine Nobel since the award began in 1901.
The Nobel awards in physics, chemistry, literature and peace will be announced later this week. The economics prize will be announced next Monday.
Entities 0 Name: Edvard Moser Count: 2 1 Name: O'Keefe Count: 2 2 Name: Collège de France Count: 1 3 Name: John O'Keefe Count: 1 4 Name: May-Britt Moser Count: 1 5 Name: Paris Count: 1 6 Name: Oxford University Count: 1 7 Name: John Stein Count: 1 8 Name: Nobel Assembly Count: 1 9 Name: University College London Count: 1 10 Name: Edvard Count: 1 11 Name: Trondheim Count: 1 12 Name: John Count: 1 13 Name: Norway Count: 1 14 Name: Norwegian University of Science and Technology Count: 1 15 Name: Stanislas Dehaene Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1pFFxe1 Title: Nobel Prizes: Medical award kicks off week of announcements Description: (CNN) -- A week of Nobel Prize announcements begins Monday in Sweden with the prize for physiology or medicine. Monday's ceremony at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm will be followed by the announcement of the physics prize on Tuesday, the chemistry prize Wednesday and the economics prize October 13.
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