Media interest in the Mosers’ research exploded when the announcement was made earlier this autumn that they had won the Nobel Prize. Here Swedish Radio reporter Björn Guner gets some insights into what researchers can learn from the data collected from a rat’s brain. Photo: Steinar Brandslet/NTNU
Animal welfare is important for Nobel laureates May-Britt and Edvard Moser. Not just because that is how it should be, but also because the researchers get the best results that way.
Gertrude is headed over to Tarzan in the neighbouring cage. She snuck out of her cage when the door happened to be open, but was quickly apprehended and returned to her own cage. She joins Hjørdis, who also seems to want to take a trip to visit the neighbour next door. Tarzan is clearly popular today.
Here at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Trondheim all of the laboratory rats have their own name. Every one.
“There are two reasons for this. First, I love animals. Second, we get better results this way,” says May-Britt Moser to all of the journalists who have come to today’s press briefing.