May-Britt Moser

The neuroscientist who mapped the brain's GPS system and redefined how we understand memory

Most people imagine Nobel Prize-winning discoveries happening in sterile laboratories, but May-Britt Moser made one of neuroscience's most revolutionary breakthroughs by watching rats run around a simple box. What she and her research partner—who happened to be her husband—discovered would fundamentally change how we understand the brain's navigation system and memory formation.

Timeline of Key Moments

• 1963 - Born in Fosnavåg, Norway, grows up in a small coastal town
• 1985 - Meets Edvard Moser while studying psychology at University of Oslo
• 1990 - Marries Edvard; they become both life and research partners
• 1995 - Completes PhD in neurophysiology, begins postdoctoral work with John O'Keefe in London
• 1996 - Returns to Norway, establishes independent research program at Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• 2005 - Discovers grid cells in the entorhinal cortex, revolutionizing understanding of spatial navigation
• 2007 - Appointed full professor and director of Centre for Neural Computation
• 2012 - Becomes co-director of Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience
• 2014 - Wins Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Edvard Moser and John O'Keefe)
• 2016 - Divorces Edvard but continues scientific collaboration
• Present - Continues research on memory, navigation, and neural networks

The story of May-Britt Moser begins not with grand scientific ambitions, but with a young woman from a tiny Norwegian fishing village who was simply curious about how the mind works. Growing up in Fosnavåg, population 900, she had no obvious path to becoming one of the world's leading neuroscientists. Her father was an electrician, her mother worked in local government, and the idea of mapping the brain's GPS system would have seemed like science fiction.

But Moser possessed something that would prove more valuable than any privileged background: an insatiable curiosity about the fundamental questions of existence. When she arrived at the University of Oslo to study psychology in the early 1980s, she was drawn to the most basic puzzles of human experience. How do we remember? How do we know where we are? How does the three-pound mass of tissue in our skulls create the rich inner world of consciousness?

It was during these university years that she met Edvard Moser, a fellow psychology student who shared her fascination with the brain. Their relationship began as an intellectual partnership—two minds equally obsessed with understanding how neural circuits create behavior. They would spend hours discussing experiments, debating theories, and dreaming about the discoveries they might make together. When they married in 1990, they weren't just joining their lives; they were creating one of science's most formidable research partnerships.

The path to their Nobel Prize-winning discovery began with a decision that many thought was career suicide. In 1995, they chose to leave the relative comfort of established research programs and return to Norway to build something entirely new. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim was hardly a neuroscience powerhouse, but it offered them something precious: the freedom to pursue their own questions in their own way.

Their breakthrough came from studying one of the most fundamental abilities any animal possesses—knowing where you are and how to get where you want to go. Working with rats in a deceptively simple experimental setup, they were investigating how the brain creates what neuroscientists call "cognitive maps"—internal representations of space that allow navigation through the world.

The discovery that would change everything happened in 2005, when May-Britt was analyzing recordings from neurons in a brain region called the entorhinal cortex. As she watched the data from rats exploring an open box, she noticed something extraordinary. Certain neurons weren't just firing when the rat was in one specific location—they were firing in a regular, repeating pattern that created a hexagonal grid across the entire space. It was as if the brain had created its own coordinate system, a neural GPS that could track position anywhere.

The moment of discovery was both thrilling and terrifying. "When we saw the first grid cell, we were almost afraid to believe it," Moser later recalled. "The pattern was so perfect, so regular, that we thought there must be some mistake in our equipment or analysis." But as they recorded from more and more neurons, the pattern held. They had discovered what would become known as grid cells—neurons that create a universal coordinate system for spatial navigation.

What made this discovery revolutionary wasn't just the elegance of the grid pattern, but what it revealed about how the brain constructs our sense of place and memory. These grid cells work together with other specialized neurons—place cells, head direction cells, and border cells—to create a comprehensive navigation system that operates below the level of consciousness. Every time you walk through your house in the dark or remember where you parked your car, this neural GPS system is working.

The Nobel Committee recognized that the Mosers, along with John O'Keefe who had discovered place cells decades earlier, had solved one of neuroscience's most fundamental puzzles. But the path to Stockholm wasn't without its complexities. The discovery was the product of an intensely collaborative partnership between May-Britt and Edvard, raising questions about how to fairly distribute credit for joint work. In the end, they shared the prize equally, but the experience highlighted the ongoing challenges of recognizing collaborative science in a system designed to honor individual achievement.

The personal cost of their scientific partnership became apparent in the years following their Nobel Prize. In 2016, May-Britt and Edvard divorced, ending a 26-year marriage that had been as much about shared scientific passion as personal love. The decision was painful but pragmatic—they had grown in different directions as people, even as their scientific collaboration remained productive. "We realized we could be better colleagues than spouses," May-Britt explained with characteristic directness.

What's remarkable is how they've managed to continue working together despite the end of their marriage. Their research group remains one of the world's leading centers for systems neuroscience, and they continue to co-author papers and share laboratory space. It's a testament to their professionalism and their shared commitment to understanding the brain, but it also reflects the unique challenges faced by scientist couples who build their careers around collaboration.

May-Britt's approach to science reflects her personality: methodical, fearless, and deeply collaborative. She's known for her ability to see patterns in complex data, her willingness to pursue unexpected findings even when they challenge established theories, and her commitment to rigorous experimental design. Colleagues describe her as someone who asks the hard questions and isn't satisfied with easy answers.

The implications of her work extend far beyond basic neuroscience. Understanding how the brain's navigation system works has opened new avenues for treating Alzheimer's disease, where spatial disorientation is often an early symptom. The grid cell system appears to be one of the first neural networks affected by the disease, suggesting that navigation problems might serve as an early diagnostic marker.

Revealing Quotes

On the moment of discovery: "When we saw the first grid cell, we were almost afraid to believe it. The pattern was so perfect, so regular, that we thought there must be some mistake in our equipment or analysis. But then we saw it again and again, and we realized we had found something fundamental about how the brain works."

On scientific collaboration: "Science is not a solo sport. The best discoveries come from minds working together, challenging each other, building on each other's ideas. Even when personal relationships change, the scientific partnership can endure if both people remain committed to the truth."

From her Nobel acceptance speech: "The brain's GPS system shows us that even our most basic abilities—knowing where we are, remembering where we've been—depend on incredibly sophisticated neural computations. We carry within our heads a navigation system more elegant than anything humans have engineered."

On the relationship between marriage and science: "Edvard and I built our careers together, but we also had to learn that being great scientific partners doesn't automatically make you great life partners. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is recognize when those roles need to be separated."

On the future of neuroscience: "We've mapped the brain's GPS, but we're still just beginning to understand how neural networks create the richness of human experience. Every answer leads to ten new questions, and that's what makes this work endlessly fascinating."

May-Britt Moser's story teaches us that the most profound discoveries often come from the most basic questions, pursued with relentless curiosity and methodical rigor. Her journey from a small Norwegian fishing village to the Nobel Prize podium demonstrates that scientific excellence isn't about having the perfect background or resources—it's about maintaining wonder in the face of complexity and having the courage to follow unexpected findings wherever they lead.

Her experience also illuminates the evolving nature of scientific collaboration in an era when the most important discoveries increasingly require teams rather than individual genius. The fact that she and Edvard could continue their scientific partnership even after their marriage ended suggests new models for how researchers might structure their professional relationships around shared intellectual goals rather than traditional hierarchies.

Perhaps most importantly, Moser's work reminds us that understanding the brain isn't just an academic exercise—it's a quest to understand ourselves. Every time we navigate through space, form a memory, or simply know where we are, we're witnessing the elegant neural computations that her research has helped reveal. In mapping the brain's GPS system, she's given us a new appreciation for the sophisticated biological machinery that makes human experience possible.