SLC1A3 and Familial paroxysmal ataxia: Jen et al. (2005) screened a cohort of patients with unexplained episodic ataxia and hemiplegic migraine for mutations in SLC1A3, which encodes a glutamate transporter essential for removing glutamate from the synaptic cleft. Glutamate is the most abundant amino acid neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. In their study, Jen et al. (2005) identified a heterozygous mutation in SLC1A3 in a patient with episodic ataxia called later episodic ataxia (EA) type 6 (EA6; OMIM # 612656).