Stockholm, Oct. 5 -- The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Sunday (local time) awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

According to a press release issued by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, the prize recognises discoveries that laid the foundation for optogenetics, a method that makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviours in the living brain.

Deisseroth is associated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University in the US, while Hegemann is affiliated with Humboldt University of Berlin and Nagel with the University of...