CNN Central News & Network-ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: Stockholm. The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to three scientists from Germany and the United States, Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel and Karl Deisseroth. They were honoured for their significant contributions to light-sensitive ion channels and the development of optogenetics. The technology has given scientists a way to control the activity of specific nerve cells in the living brain with the help of light.
Hegemann and Nagel played a key role in discovering and understanding the properties of a light-sensitive protein called channelrhodopsin in single-celled algae. Karl Deisseroth later took this discovery to nerve cells. By inserting the gene for this protein into nerve cells, he developed a technique to control their activity through light.
Optogenetics has changed the way brain research is conducted. Through it, scientists are able to understand how different nerve cells in the brain influence memory, emotions and behaviour. This has opened new possibilities for understanding brain mechanisms linked to depression, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and other neurological and mental disorders. The technology is currently used mainly in research, but scientists are also working on the basis of it for new treatment possibilities in the future. Technologies linked to optogenetics are also being studied in efforts to restore vision in visually impaired people.
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