Norwegian scientist May-Britt Moser danced and drank champagne after winning the Nobel Prize for medicine together with her husband Edvard Moser and British-American scientist John O'Keefe.

"This is so great, this is crazy. I am just jumping, screaming," Moser told Reuters. "I am so proud of all the support that we have had. People have believed in us, in what we have been doing and now this is the reward."

The scientist was discussing data with colleagues in their lab when she was called by the secretary general of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute.

"I almost did not take the call because the discussion was so interesting," she said.

Later May-Britt Moser was shown on Norwegian TV twirling around with her hands raised, holding a glass of champagne at a party in Trondheim as her co-workers sang "Happy Nobel to you" to the tune of "Happy Birthday".

Her husband did not immediately learn that he had won the Nobel Prize as he was on a plane bound to Munich, she said.

Someone was waiting for him at Munich airport with flowers and gave him the news, he told the Norwegian news agency NTB.