Such excessive excitation can lead to dysfunction of the nervous system in the case of epilepsy and to nerve cell degeneration in cases of hypoxia, hypoglycemia, brain or spinal cord ischemia, brain or spinal cord trauma and in neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer's disease, Down's Syndrome and Korsakoff's disease.