The N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) Receptor: From Pathophysiology to Clinical Significance
A special issue of Biomolecules (ISSN 2218-273X).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2026 | Viewed by 157
Special Issue Editor
Interests: epilepsy; schizophrenia; exocytosis; tripartite synaptic transmission
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor is excitatory glutamatergic receptor that plays fundamental roles in various neuronal processes. NMDAR is tetrameric assemblies, typically made up of two GluN1 subunits (including the glycine binding site) and two GluN2 subunits (including the glutamate binding site). The arrangement of these subunits to form tetramer is critical to cation channel function and imparts NMDAR with rich diversities, such as ionotropic modulation, channel kinetics, mobility, and signal transduction other than cation mobilization.
The NMDA receptor is physiologically essential for normal neuronal function and plays a pivotal role in cognition, learning, and memory processes through regulating synaptic plasticity, growth cones, and synaptogenesis; however, a pathologically hyperactivated NMDA receptor leads to an excitotoxicity reaction via enhancing cation inflow and the redox response. It has been established that functional abnormalities of NMDA receptors contribute to the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of various neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and brain ischemia. To date, a number of clinical trials have been conducted to assess the promising clinical effectiveness of various agonists and antagonists of NMDA receptor for treating the above disease and disorders; however, unfortunately, no trials could not reveal their effectiveness over placebo.
These demonstrations of clinical trials to date cannot be concluded to indicate limitations to the clinical application of NMDA receptor modulation. This Special Issue, “The N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) Receptor From Pathophysiology to Clinical Significance”, will introduce the fields associated with NMDA receptors, explore advances and disadvantages regarding the role of NMDA receptors in diseases and disorders of the CNS, and discuss their abilities as pharmacological tools to regulate glutamatergic transmission in several psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases associated with NMDA receptors. We invite authors to submit original research and review articles related to these aspects.
Prof. Dr. Motohiro Okada
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- L-glutamate
- D-serine
- ionotropic glutamate receptors
- psychiatric disorders
- neurodegeneration
- synaptic plasticity
- epilepsy
- pathophysiology
- signaling
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