The 2026 Nobel Prize season opened on Monday with the Medicine Prize being awarded to three scientists working on the mechanisms the brain uses to switch on, or off, the activity of individual nerve cells.

Karl Deisseroth, 54, Peter Hegemann, 71, and Georg Nagel, 73, have carried out research into light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. They are based at universities in Germany and the United States.

The Nobel committee lauded their work, writing on social media that the method “is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries”.

The optogenetics field helps researchers understand how specific cell types contribute to behaviours like learning, fear, addiction and movement, and may one day lead to treatments for neurological and sensory disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.