You may know where you are and where you 're going to , but do you know why you know that ? The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has honored three neuroscientists , whose work is helping answer that question . John O'Keefe , along with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser , discovered cells that form a positioning system in the brain -- our hard-wired GPS . Those cells mark our position , navigate where we 're going and help us remember it all , so that we can repeat our trips , the Nobel Assembly said in a statement . Nobel Prizes : Medical award kicks off week of announcements . Alzheimer 's insights . Their research could also prove useful in Alzheimer 's research , because of the parts of the brain those cells lie in -- the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex . Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi , which lie in the inner core of the bottom of the brain and are responsible for memory and orientation . The entorhinal cortices share these functions and connect the hippocampi with the huge neocortex , the bulk of our gray matter . In Alzheimer 's patients , those two brain components break down early on , causing sufferers to get lost more easily . Understanding how the brain 's GPS works may help scientists in the future understand how this disorientation occurs . The research is also important , because it pinpoints `` a cellular basis for higher cognitive function , '' the Nobel Assembly said . The scientists conducted their research on rats , but other research on humans indicates that we have these same cells . Nerve cell discoveries . O'Keefe , a British neuroscientist who is also an American-born U.S. citizen , made the first discovery in 1971 , when he came upon a nerve cell in the brain of a rat that was set off whenever the rat was in a particular place , the statement said . The scientist called them `` place cells . '' In 2005 , the Mosers , Norwegian neuroscientists , discovered yet another component . `` They identified another type of nerve cell , which they called 'grid cells , ' that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding , '' the statement read . They also later figured out how place and grid cells work together to make the brain know where it is and where it 's headed . Oversimplified , one could say that the place cells mark point A and point B in the brain , and the grid cells help the brain get from point A to point B . The prize money of 8 million Swedish kronor ( $ 1.2 million ) took an interesting split . Half went to O'Keefe and half went jointly to the Mosers , who are a couple . It would seem to reflect the half-half nature of their discoveries . Nobel background . Monday 's ceremony at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm , Sweden , will be followed by the announcement of the physics prize Tuesday , the chemistry prize Wednesday and the economics prize on October 13 . The prize for literature will be awarded on a date to be announced later . The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday . Two Americans and a German shared the Nobel Prize in physiology last year . James E. Rothman and Randy W. Schekman , and German Thomas C. Sudhof were awarded the prize for discoveries of how the body 's cells decide when and where to deliver the molecules they produce . Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel created the prizes in 1895 to honor work in physics , chemistry , literature and peace . The first economics prize was awarded in 1969 .
Prize money took an interesting split : half went to a scientist , half to other 2 jointly . Their research could be useful in the study of Alzheimer 's disease . Place cells and grid cells make the brain know where it is and where it 's going . Research by the three also helps better understand how people orient themselves .