Neurons eat glutamate to stay alive.

Neurons are thought to primarily rely on glucose to fuel mitochondrial metabolism. In this issue, Divakaruni et al. (2017. J. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201612067) show that neurons are also happy to use glutamate. When neurons use this neurotransmitter, its concentration drops, thus protecting against glutamate-induced excitotoxic stress.