Three British scientists have scooped the largest prize for neuroscience in the world, sharing a 1 million euro (US$1.09 million) award for their work on memory.
In an announcement by the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation in Denmark on Tuesday, it was revealed that Tim Bliss, Graham Collingridge and Richard Morris are to share the prize. The trio have won the award, dubbed the Brain Prize, for their seminal work on understanding what happens in the brain when people make, and lose, memories. While British researchers have shared the prize in previous years, this is the first time an all-British lineup has won the award.
Speaking from Ottawa, Canada, at press briefing ahead of the announcement, Collingridge — a professor of neuroscience in anatomy at the University of Bristol and chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto — said he was “still in a state of shock” at the win.
The trio’s work revolves around understanding the neural basis of memory.
“Understanding memory is one of the grand challenges of neuroscience,” said Morris, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh.
“I think we all recognize that memory is absolutely fundamental to so many aspects of our daily life,” he said. “So many aspects of family life would just be completely unthinkable if we were frozen in a particular moment of time, unable to look back and unable to look forward.”
“What’s more, disorders of memory are greatly feared,” he added.
More formally known as the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize, the annual award was first presented five years ago to celebrate achievements in neuroscience and to “enhance the interaction between Danish and European brain research.”
The award ceremony is to take place in Copenhagen on July 1, where the prize is to be presented by Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.
The scientists say they have not yet decided exactly what to spend their winnings on.
The work for which the scientists have been recognized has long roots.
“It’s been accepted really since the turn of the 20th century, since the time of the Spanish neuroscientist Ramon y Cajal, that really the only place where memories can be stored is at synapses, the junctions between nerve cells” said Bliss, visiting worker at the Francis Crick Institute at Mill Hill, London.
It was during Bliss’ work in the early 1970s on the brain region known as the hippocampus that he first demonstrated the so-called Hebbian principle, according to which: “If nerve cell A is connected to nerve cell B, and A takes part in firing B, then the synapse, the connection between A and B, will be strengthened,” Bliss said.
This mechanism by which synapses are strengthened underpins the formation of memories and is now known as Long Term Potentiation, or LTP.
Building on this revelation, Collingridge began to probe the molecular mechanisms behind the phenomenon of LTP, work which led to the discovery of the key role of a protein known as the NMDA receptor. It was a finding Morris was to expand upon, developing a series of experiments that showed specific drugs could be used to target NMDA receptors, preventing rodents from learning while leaving intact existing connections between neurons.
Crucially, revealing the mechanisms behind memory has provided scientists with new understanding of a host of conditions from autism to schizophrenia, Collingridge said.
“What we now know, and this is the work of many groups, is that when the NMDA receptor is working properly it is important for learning and memory, but when things go wrong then it is the cause of major neurological and psychiatric conditions,” he said.
Indeed, Morris said that the research could benefit those in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, when, it is believed, these synaptic mechanisms are targeted.
“If we can zero in on the very earliest stages — and that is not going to be easy to do — then it may be possible to develop new drugs that could help people at that stage, give them more independent living, give their families and carer more time to deal with the situation before things get very bad,” Morris said.
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