October 9, 2000
New York Times [from the NYT web site, www.nytimes.com ]
Three Scientists Share Nobel Prize in Medicine
By NICHOLAS WADE
Three scientists who laid the basis for much of the present understanding
of the interconnection between brain cells were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.
The work of Dr. Arvid Carlsson of the University of Gothenberg in Sweden, and two New Yorkers, Dr. Eric R. Kandel
of Columbia University and Dr. Paul Greengard of Rockefeller University has increased understanding of how brain
cells send messages to one another. The research has also led other scientists to develop drugs to treat a variety
of mental ailments and illnesses.
Dr. Carlsson discovered that dopamine is the chemical signal that is depleted in patients with Parkinson's disease,
thus laying the basis for the current treatment with L-dopa.
Dr. Kandel has worked to understand the changes that take place in brain cells when memories are formed. Dr. Greengard
has focused on the unraveling the intricate cascade of events that takes place inside a neuron after a signal is
received.
The common thread of the three biologists' work is that each has made many important contributions to understanding
the synapse, the interconnection between one brain cell and the next. The complexity of the human brain stems from
the vast number of synapses — at least 100 trillion — made between its 10 billion nerve cells or neurons. Unlike
a computer, whose connections are hard-wired, the synapses continually alter their strength, adding an extra layer
of complexity to the brain's operations.
These subtle changes of strength have emerged as essential features of the brain's operation because they affect
long term processes, including mood and memory.
The three Nobel awards "represent the platform on which we now stand to investigate the long term changes
in the nervous system that are at the heart not only of normal memory but also of many mental illnesses and the
treatment for these illnesses," said Dr. Steven Hyman, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
The three men sill share a $915,000 prize.
At a news conference at Rockefeller University, Dr. Greengard was greeted by a two minute ovation. He said the
prize and the ovation moved and thrilled him. "It's just a wonderful thing," he said.
He said he intended to donate his share of the prize money to a fund for women working in biomedical research.
Dr. Kandel, in a separate news conference, suggested his fascination with memory stems from his escape to America
from Austria at the beginning of World War II.
"We are who we are because of what we learn and what we remember, the traumatic experiences such as those
that I experienced in Vienna and the more horrible experiences that others had who had more difficult times than
I did, permanently scarring their lives, and to understand what happens to the brain when that occurs, I think
is just a wonderful problem," he said.