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The newly named Nobel laureates have developed a technology that uses light to activate individual nerve cells in the brain and change behaviour in mice — for example, making them run away.

Three researchers received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering a light-controlled brain switch that can alter animal behaviour, shed light on psychiatric disorders and may even help restore sight.

Nobel laureates remotely control the brain with algae protein and light

The newly named Nobel laureates have developed a technology that uses light to activate individual nerve cells in the brain and change behaviour in mice — for example, making them run away.

So what does it actually take to earn science’s highest honour, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?

First, you make a basic scientific discovery: that algae have an eyespot containing a light-sensitive protein that makes them swim towards a light source. Then you use that very mechanism to activate individual nerve cells in an animal’s brain with light, causing the animal to change its behaviour.

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