The NMDA receptor is a critical gate for neuroplasticity, activated when neural circuits are changing due to strong stimuli, experiences, or drugs.

“Normally that NMDA receptor is not easily activated when it is activated it sets off a cascade, a series of signals within those neurons that change those neurons. It changes the genes they express, it shuttles more parking spots to the surface of those cells so that the communication to those cells becomes easier, it becomes faster.”

“if I were to sit down at this desk and be commanded to or decide to do some specific motor limb movement let's say move my hand in a three dot sequence for those of you watching you can see this for those of you that are listening don't worry about it it's not very interesting to watch the point is just that I'm going to put my finger down in one two three points on the desk in front of me and then 3 2 1 points coming back to me now that's obviously a motor sequence that I can perform I just did it so clearly I can perform it but if I were to do that for let's say an hour what would happen is the neurons that are involved in generating that motor sequence of 1 2 3 3 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 1 would be active over and over and over again and what would likely happen because of that unusual frankly motor behavior is that the neurons responsible for generating that motor Behavior would be able to detect it as unusually frequent unusually high levels of activity in the circuits that generate that behavior and the increase in glutamate that's impinging on the neurons in that circuit would bind the nmda receptor making it change”