Alcohol and NMDA receptor: current research and future direction

The brain is one of the major targets of alcohol actions. Most of the excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system is mediated by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors.

However, one of the most devastating effects of alcohol leads to brain shrinkage, loss of nerve cells at specific regions through a mechanism involving excitotoxicity, oxidative stress.

Earlier studies