Betty and David Koetser Award for Brain Research presented in Zürich to May-Britt and Edvard Moser for work on spatial memory mechanisms.
On 21 November 2006, May-Britt and Edvard Moser were presented with the Betty and David Koetser Award for Brain Research 2006 at the University of Zürich. The award honored their work on hippocampal and entorhinal mechanisms of spatial memory and navigation.
The Koetser Award recognizes significant contributions to clinical or experimental brain research. The Mosers’ investigations into place cells, head-direction cells, and ultimately grid cells demonstrated how spatial information is encoded across interacting neural networks. Their research provided detailed insights into how the hippocampal formation supports memory of location and movement, bridging animal behavior, neural circuitry, and cognitive theory.
Historically, the award reflected growing international appreciation of the Trondheim group’s systematic exploration of spatial coding. For women’s history, the recognition of May-Britt Moser in a specialized brain research award highlighted her status as a leading experimentalist in a domain frequently associated with male laboratory heads. The Koetser Award helped further establish the scientific reputation of the Mosers’ center, contributing to a series of honors that would culminate in Nobel recognition and cement their work as foundational to modern systems neuroscience.