The 2026 Nobel Prize was announced today and it’s a genetics thing. Yay, Mind controlled mice. The Nobel committees announced the year’s first winners on Monday, awarding the prize for physiology or medicine to a trio of scientists who the committees said have “laid the foundation of a new era in neuroscience.”
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, & Georg Nagel were awarded the Nobel Prize in #physiology or #medicine for their pioneering discoveries in optogenetics, a method that uses light to determine how cells operate in the brain or even to exert control over those processes.
Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain.
That’s how light went from being simply something we see to becoming a tool for manipulating neural circuits. So, scientists can essentially use light as a remote ON/OFF switch for selected neurons to observe what happens to behavior or brain function.
https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.cal.ur.science.pal/video/7693228143196310806
