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Scientists Win Nobel for Light-Controlled Brain Cells
Confirmed
In Short: The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to three scientists working on the mechanisms the brain uses to switch on, or off, the activity of individual nerve cells.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the award in Stockholm on Monday, recognizing the three scientists for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.
Optogenetics allows researchers to activate or silence particular cells using light-sensitive proteins, a technique that has revolutionized neuroscience.
In research published in 2005, Deisseroth's team demonstrated that blue light could rapidly and precisely trigger electrical activity in nerve cells.
The technique has given neuroscientists a way to test how specific neural circuits influence memories, emotions, behavior, and other functions rather than simply observing brain activity.
The researchers demonstrated that the proteins could make other cells responsive to light, enabling precise control over neural activity.
Deisseroth is based at Stanford University in California, while Hegemann is at Humboldt University in Berlin and Nagel at the University of Würzburg in Germany.
Optogenetics is now used worldwide to study how nerve cells influence memory, emotions, and behavior, helping scientists better understand neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Neuroscientist David Attwell told ScienceAlert that the pathways by which toxic proteins are removed from the brain are poorly understood.
Attwell explained that proteins are removed through tiny tubes similar to those in lymph nodes outside the brain, suggesting a potential link to Alzheimer's disease.
Abdel El Manira, a member of the Nobel Prize committee and a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said during the award announcement, 'How does an organ composed of nearly 90 billion neurons transform this complex interplay of perception, memory, prediction, and decision-making into a single, purposeful behavior?'
Andrea Benucci, a neuroscientist at Queen Mary University of London, told CNN's Katie Hunt, 'The ability to activate or silence neurons in the brain using laser light has opened the door to unprecedented precision.'
What this adds
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their work on optogenetics, building on prior WarpBeat coverage of the same award.
The researchers' work has provided a newly identified structure to investigate, tracing the journey of harmful proteins out of the brain.
Background
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their work on optogenetics.
What's confirmed
- The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the award in Stockholm on Monday, recognising the three scientists "for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics."
- The Nobel Assembly said Deisseroth is based at Stanford University in California, while Hegemann is at Humboldt University in Berlin and Nagel at the University of Würzburg in Germany.
What's still developing
- As other scientists started scanning the messenger RNAs made by Chlamydomonas, Hegemann spotted a couple of genes that were similar to a light-activated ion pump found in an archaeal species.
- Over decades of research, scientists have built up a partial picture of what specialized cells within the brain and spinal cord do.
- After Friday's peace prize is awarded, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on Oct. 12.
- Last year, the prize went to three scientists researching the immune system.
- "is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain's mysteries."
- "In the future it will be important to demonstrate that these tubes function in the same way in living humans," Attwell said.
- "We also need to know whether a slowing of this pumping contributes to initiating Alzheimer's disease, and whether therapeutically speeding the pumping could help treat the disease," Attwell said.
- For now, scientists have a newly identified structure to investigate.
- Behind all of that activity, your brain also has a housekeeping problem: what to do with proteins that can become harmful when they accumulate.
- But tracing their journey out of the brain has proved surprisingly difficult.
- One follows the walls of arterioles, small vessels supplying brain tissue with blood.
- Earlier research has explored fluid movement along the brain's blood vessels.