A neurotransmitter with a fascinating story

Mattson also describes the role of glutamate in insects, Caenorhabditis elegans roundworms, rodents, and human beings, and explains why glutamate neurotransmission is so extensive in human brain evolution. The crucial role of the hippocampus in memory formation is explained, with anecdotes about London taxi drivers, and Mattson ruminates about epileptic seizures and consequences for memory acquisition after surgical removal of hippocampal lesions, the development of cognitive maps and the amazing discovery of place cells, and the stress-response impairment in the hippocampus as a possible mechanism underlying post-traumatic stress disorder. [...]Mattson offers an interesting perspective on how neural decay might be maintained, improved, and prevented through fasting, physical and mental exercise, and reducing obesity and its associated comorbidities.