BBlogFlow

Nobel medicine prize goes to three scientists for research into brain activity - Los Angeles Times

·Oct 5, 2026
Source: Los Angeles Times
Read the original article

This story deserves to be shared

Send it to someone who'd care, or post it on your networks.

Facebook Twitter Email
Photo credit : Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel are shown on the screen as they are awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize

STOCKHOLM — The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to three scientists whose work led to a tool that uses light to help unravel how the brain works. Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have carried out research into light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. The Nobel Assembly lauded their work and said their tool is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries. Deisseroth, 54, is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and Stanford University professor in California. Hegemann, 71, is at Humboldt University in Berlin, and Nagel, 73, most recently worked at the University of Würzburg, also in Germany, the assembly said. The work that won the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicineOptogenetics opened what the Nobel Assembly called a new era in neuroscience after the discovery of a light-controlled switch to turn on and off nerve cells and circuits in the brain to better learn how it works. The research has started unraveling the pathways that lead to behavior and disease. The breakthrough began when Hegemann explored how a single-celled type of green algae can swim toward light.

This article is an excerpt. To read the full content, visit the original source. Los Angeles Times

Reactions

0 comments

No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Facebook Twitter

Related articles

Simulations explore nuclear mitigation of asteroid threats - Phys.org

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Isaiah Santistevan led the development of three-dimensional simulations exploring how a nuclear device could deflect or disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. Credit: Blaise Douros/LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.

Phys.org·

Orcas are hunting great White Sharks around the world, scientists confirm - Geo News

Orcas are hunting great White Sharks around the world, scientists confirmThe killing of great whites by orcas has been reported in the waters of South Africa, California, and Australia, and the implications that the hunting behaviour would have on the marine ecosystem have been considered. In fact, it all started back on May 3, 2017, when the body of a female great white, weighing 1,100 kilograms, washed ashore in Gansbaai, close to Cape Town, with a deep gash through which its 90-kilogram liver had been extracted. Five more corpses of great whites appeared with similar wounds in the coming months, as claimed by shark biologist Alison Towner of Rhodes University. Two adult males, called Port and Starboard, who are supposed to be brothers judging by their dorsal fins that fold differently, were identified as the most probable perpetrators. The connection was officially established in 2022 based on video footage of a drone that caught three orcas chasing and biting a 3-meter great white off Mossel Bay. The sharks quickly disappeared from Dyer Island, one of the best places in the world to witness a great white.

Geo News·