(Reuters) – British-American John O’Keefe and Norwegians May-Britt and Edvard Moser won the 2014 Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering the brain’s navigation system and giving clues as to how strokes and Alzheimer’s disrupt it. Ole Kiehn, a Nobel committee member and professor in Karolinska’s neuroscience department, said the three scientists had found “an inner GPS that makes it possible to know where we are and find our way”.
“How does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment?”
“STATE OF SHOCK”
O’Keefe told reporters in London he was very surprised to get the Nobel Prize, particularly after what he described as a “checkered youth” jumping from studying classics at school, then aeronautics at college before getting into philosophy and psychology.
“I’m still in a state of shock,” he said.
May-Britt Moser danced and drank champagne with her colleagues in Trondheim after she was told of the award.
“This is so great, this is crazy. I am just jumping, screaming,” Moser told Reuters. “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.”
Norwegian TV showed her co-workers singing “Happy Nobel to you” to the tune of “Happy Birthday”.