21st century excitatory amino acid research: A Q & A with Jeff Watkins and Dick Evans

The glutamatergic synapse - A key hub in neuronal metabolism, signalling and plasticity

The Special Issue of Neuropharmacology on the glutamatergic synapse is one of a series of Special Issues celebrating the 40th anniversary of Dick Evans and Jeff Watkins's seminal review on excitatory amino acids (Watkins and Evans, 1981). Through a careful appraisal of the literature extending several decades prior to the 1980s, and their own development and use of ligands for excitatory amino acid receptors, Dick and Jeff provided incontrovertible proof for the veracity and importance of glutamate as a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. While other Special Issues in this series examine the receptors activated by glutamate (AMPA, NMDA, Kainate, mGluR and Delta/Orphan glutamate receptors) this Special Issue examines the glutamatergic synapse itself, and considers its evolution, metabolism, structure, properties and plasticity that have placed it so firmly at the centre of neuronal signalling in the central nervous system.