The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine illuminates every year a landmark achievement in the field, and this year’s honour has gone to three scientists whose work on light-sensing proteins and optogenetics promises to advance neurological studies and therapies.

Optogenetics involves the use of light to switch cells on and off; the transmission of light in the cell is made possible by proteins such as rhodopsins.

The work of Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel, researchers at Stanford University in the US, Humboldt, and Wurzburg universities in Germany, respectively, has made it possible to study neurons and neural pathways and analyse such functions as eating, aggression, and sociability.

The foundational work in the field was done by........

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