Nobel Prize a Reminder of How the Brain Can Surprise Us
Brain cells that create our "inner GPS" among a list of others specialized for particular purposes.
Location, location, location: It's just as important for the brain as it is for real estate. Our brains help us find our way using specialized cells, and the discovery of this "inner GPS" earned three neuroscientists the 2014 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday.
The find spotlights just one of the specialized parts of the brain that handle specific functions. (Related: "Why Haven't They Won? 10 Huge Discoveries Without a Nobel Prize.")
The prize honors "discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain." Half of the $1.11 million award goes to John O'Keefe of University College in London and half to Norway's May-Britt Moser of the Centre for Neural Computation and Edvard Moser of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience. (See:
