Glutamate receptors - prenatal insults, long-term consequences.

Glutamate receptors play an important role in brain development. Any factor interfering with glutamate receptors might have potentially harmful effects by modulation and impacting on functional brain development. Increased glutamate levels and subsequent activation of glutamate receptors can cause excitotoxic cell death. In this review we describe the developmental regulation and role of glutamate receptors in brain development. Furthermore, we discuss environmental factors that potentially modify glutamate receptors in the fetal brain during pregnancy. We also highlight the importance of glutamate receptors in the pathophysiology of brain injury in preterm born infants and discuss anti-excitotoxic treatments currently investigated in preclinical animal models of developmental brain injury.