Nobel medicine prize goes to three brain activity researchers

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel won the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for research on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics that lets scientists control nerve cell activity, KTLA reported, citing The Associated Press.

The work helped create a method for turning nerve cells and brain circuits on or off with light, a tool the Nobel Assembly said is used worldwide to study the brain.

The prize was announced at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, KTLA reported. The award recognized research into how the brain activates or quiets individual nerve cells.

Deisseroth, 54, is based at Stanford University in California. Hegemann, 71, works at Humboldt University in Berlin, and Nagel, 73, is based at the University of Würzburg in Germany, according to KTLA.

Hegemann and Nagel discovered that a protein in green algae opens a channel and triggers an electrical impulse when exposed to blue light, KTLA reported. Deisseroth then used the gene tied to that protein to make a light-controlled switch for nerve cells in living mice.

The Nobel Assembly said on X that the method "is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries," according to KTLA.

The medicine award opened Nobels week. KTLA reported that this year’s prize money is 12 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.2 million, and that the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced Oct. 12.

The Nobel Assembly’s announcement places the three scientists’ work at the center of a research field that uses light to probe brain pathways linked to behavior and disease.