OK, so this is a pretty interesting piece. Thanks for sharing it. I like your intro to excitotoxic pathways and how they contribute to cell death. It's a critical pathway to know about and it plays a role in many pathologies, as you included.

I want to share with you a caution I've learned going from a basic science lab into drug development and clinical practice. Basic science is inherently reductionist in nature. We try to distill a process down to one protein, one gene, one root cause. While you may see an effect in a KO mouse its translatability to humans and to clinical medicine MAY not pan out. Mother nature is one smart complex lady. We all know that a mechanism may make sense or work in a lower mammalian model but when tried in humans it doesn't work or cause harm. I caution anyone that anyone hangs their hat on one protein or gene to fix a neurologic problem, unless it's a problem having to do with a miscoded protein/lack there of and you are using a gene therapy to replace that missing gene.

This is the challenge of neuroscience and therapeutics. We still don't fully understand how the brain works. We are trying to solve a puzzle that we don't even have all the pieces to yet. It's exhilarating and frustrating. You talk a lot about memory, LTP and LTD, but what physically, in the brain, is a memory. It's a philosophical question because no one really has a definitive answer (I have my own thoughts on this).

At the end of the day modulating Lynx 2 MAY be of benefit. I'd bet it helps people who are lacking it or have lower levels to tolerate normal stresses. Do I think that upregulating it will prevent cell death in a stroke? Doubtful

Again, thanks for sharing this. I just caution anyone from hanging their hat on any one mechanism as the therapy to fix everyone with a particular disease. It can work in some cases, but not in most.

Be inquisitive, skeptical and always curious