Nobel prize winners Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel: the research of signal transduction in the nervous system

Abstract

For many decades, scientists have tried to unravel the mysteries of the nervous system – the complex phenomenon that receives messages, processes information, and sends signals to the rest of the body. The most important scientific discoveries of the 19th and the 20th centuries paved the way for the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel “for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system”. So, the beginning of the new millennium was “marked” by pioneering research into the chemical transmission of signals in the central nervous system, which created the foundation for a deeper understanding of the mediatory role of dopamine, the processes of slow synaptic transmission, short-term and long-term memory, and the mechanisms of action of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs. The paper aims to outline the main stages of scientific activities of a Swedish neuropharmacologist Per Arvid Emil Carlsson and the American neurobiologists Paul Greengard and Eric Richard Kandel. Keywords: Arvid Carlsson, brain, dopamine, Eric Kandel, learning, memory, nervous system, Paul Greengard, slow synaptic transmission, the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine