Glutamate receptors are the predominant excitatory neurotransmitter receptors in the mammalian brain and are activated in a variety of normal neurophysiologic processes. This gene product belongs to the kainate family of glutamate receptors, which are composed of four subunits and function as ligand-activated ion channels. Transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been described for this gene, however, their full-length nature is not known. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]