India, Oct. 5 -- Scientists Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have clinched the Nobel Prize in Medicine for optogenetics - a method that makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviours in the living brain.

The award-giving body said Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel discovered a remarkable protein, channelrhodopsin, in a single-celled alga.

Karl Deisseroth transformed the protein into a light-controlled switch for nerve cells. The laureates have laid the foundation of a new era in neuroscience.

"Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of," says Per Svenningsson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine.

It all began wit...