Pioneers of brain-cell signaling earn Nobel

Three neuroscientists whose work has revealed molecular mechanisms by which brain cells communicate share this year’s Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Beyond opening a window to how memories form, their work has led to drugs for Parkinson’s disease and offered insight into how some antipsychotic drugs work.

“These discoveries have been crucial for an understanding of the normal function of the brain and how disturbances in [brain-cell signaling] can give rise to neurological and psychiatric diseases,” the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm stated in its award announcement.