By  Sola Ogundipe

A Norwegian couple, Professors Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser and American-British neuroscientist, Prof John O’Keefe, have been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain, described as an “inner GPS.”

The Mosers, both professors of neuroscience, are the fifth married couple to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

May-Britt Moser is Director of the Centre for Neural Computation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and her husband, Edvard Moser, who is Director of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience discovered a type of nerve cell that generates a coordinate system and allowing for precise positioning in 2005.

O’Keefe, a professor of cognitive neuroscience Director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in Neural Circuits and Behaviour at the University College London, discovered the first component of the positioning system in 1971.

Announcing the award yesterday, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet said together, the discoveries explain how the brain creates a map of space and how humans navigate their way through a complex environment.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded annually to “the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine.”

It is one of five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite in his will in 1895.

Between 1901 and 2013, more than 560 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 876 people and organisations. Nobel laureates receive the title, a diploma, a gold medal and about $1.2 million in award money. If two winners are chosen for a single category, the prize is split in half.

When more than two people or organizations are selected, the prize is distributed at the judges’ discretion.

No less than 104 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have been awarded between 1901 and 2013 and 10 women have been awarded the Medicine Prize so far.

The youngest Medicine Laureate ever, Frederick G. Banting, was aged 32 when he was awarded the 1923 Medicine Prize for the discovery of insulin.

The eldest Medicine Laureate ever, was Peyton Rous, who was 84 years old when he was awarded the Medicine Prize in 1966 for his discovery of tumour-inducing viruses.