(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Most people have heard of GPS.
Many rely on it to get from A to B.
But far fewer people will have heard of a kind of "inner GPS" in the brain, which helps us get where we're going and remember where we've been.
It's a discovery that's just earnt three scientists this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Phillippa Carisbrooke has more.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Cries of delight from Norwegian scientist May-Britt Moser as she celebrates her Nobel Prize win.
Her husband, and joint prize winner, Edvard, far from the party.
Only learning they'd been honoured when he got off a plane.
"I am full of gratitude. It's a great moment. I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to this."
The husband and wife team at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, together with British-American John O'Keefe from University College London, were recognised for their work identifying nerve cells that make up a sort of inner GPS.
Professor O'Keefe discovered the first component of the positioning system in 1971.
And says his findings weren't always well received.
"I made the initial discovery over 40 years ago. It was met then with a lot of scepticism and that's not unusual in science. And then slowly over years the evidence accumulated."
Their discovery of an internal positioning system in the brain may help scientists understand why people with Alzheimer's Disease often lose their way and can't recognise their environment.
Edvard Moser says it doesn't stop there.
"If you find the basic principles that control how the brain operates, we will be able to, in the long term, to treat every kind, all kinds of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Not only Alzheimer."
The trio shares more than one million dollars in prize money.
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